The goal of a startup is no longer just user engagement or viability. A “preference for disruption” is celebrated, without reservation, whether a small or big business. (Only recently were reservations even fussed over – Jill Lepore’s critique of Disruption culture was published the week after this conference talk, June 23.) She states (without critical analysis of causation): “Ever since “The Innovator’s Dilemma,” everyone is either disrupting or being disrupted. There are disruption consultants, disruption conferences, and disruption seminars. This fall, the University of Southern California is opening a new program: “The degree is in disruption,” the university announced. “Disrupt or be disrupted,” the venture capitalist Josh Linkner warns in a new book.” As an ethnographer of innovation practices, I have always appreciated Christensen and his contribution to theories of change. I also observe the trend signified by Lepore, the increasing meta-narrative of “disruption is good.” Disruptive innovation is not …
Posted Sunday morning, without comment
Zimmerman verdict: A green light for racist vigilantes Nice Day for a Lynching The bloodhounds look like sad old judges In a strange court. They point their noses At the Negro jerking in the tight noose; His feet spread crow-like above these Honorable men who laugh as he chokes. I don’t know this black man. I don’t know these white men. But I know that one of my hands Is black, and one white. I know that One part of me is being strangled, While another part horribly laughs. Until it changes, I shall be forever killing; and be killed. Kenneth Patchen, Selected Poems Written 1959
A collective failure of moral imagination?
Let’s summarize this week’s headlines with an eye toward the moral hazard now acceptable in every consequential context. The Masters of the Universe have disavowed risk entirely, so, apparently, are we asked to forgive and forget the debts to humanity owed by the amoral 1%. Lagarde says with respect to Greece “I am not in a negotiation or renegotiation mood at all.” The IMF has nothing to negotiate, reality will take over. LIBOR-gate: Local Governments Which Entered Into Interest Rate Swaps Got Scalped And our officials probably knew interest rates were going lower (I sure did), so they were forced by financial culture to buy swaps that were manipulated, which resulting additional payments beyond interest broke community budgets and destroyed US jobs. JPMorgan Chase Manipulation Scandal Raises Specter Of Enron What else is new? Is every thinking American worn down too much to even care? Should hospital CEOs willing to …
Designing a Future for our Future
You know the Singularity is coming. Get ready for The Multiplicity. The workshop entices participants to co-create a future in collaboration as an act of personal foresight. We take on the creation of possible personal scenarios that confront the future opportunities for humanity, positioning our inherent multiplicities as creative narratives to counter the technologically-determined future being called the “singularity.” When we think of the future, we tend to push a vague collection of dreams, possibilities and wishes out to a speculative point in the years following the nearest term. We can guess about the world in two years, we can create plans for 5 years, but 10 and 20 years challenge our personal vision. As a Design with Dialogue session, we will engage in inquiry (Big Questions), exploration (co-creation with small groups into your questions), and co-producing (harvesting and learning together). People co-exploring make this a fun and personally enriching …
