I read an article today in Core77 about “Emerging Markets as a Source of Disruptive Innovation” posted by Niti Bhan and I wanted to share some of my thoughts…

Why do you think?

Reaction by Jill Yoe Graves

Disruptive Technologies*

In the blog post Niti Bhan stated, “Where design of consumer products tended to begin with the assumptions of individual ownership or entertainment or passive consumption of throwaway convenience, its time to look at increasing productivity and opportunities for income generation while minimizing the impact on the environment and need for resources.”

Though I agree with Bhan’s point about creating products that “minimize the impact on the environment and need for resources”, I question the stated agenda behind creating new products. Why is the primary need that is being called for here related to increasing products and opportunities for income generation? If we are really looking at the needs of the lower income demographic or those in the “bottom of the pyramid”, I’m not sure that income generation should be the primary concern.

I have a more idealized view of where I would like to see design impact society. A view where designers see needs, extensions of the design’s life, how these designs could improve the journey and more positively interact with our lives, rather than an artifact’s brief impact on the market. It seems to me that this incessant creation of things cannot last, and that it would be more valuable to start shifting our thinking of what consumer products are and should be in today’s society. Truly considering the value, before it’s created—considering questions like, how could this design impact our world/community/society/culture in, say, 50 years?

If we are, here, examining the place for disruptive innovations (or design considerations that should be related to those disruptive innovations), maybe what we should be looking at is how to integrate a design approach that considers our true needs and the needs of others—maybe through disruptive innovation, maybe not—into the marketplace.

* Defined here by Niti Bhan on Core 77:

One of the most misunderstood terms in the business world is disruptive technology. Too many companies—and the marketers in charge of bringing these companies’ innovations to market—assume that “disruptive” connotes a highly-sophisticated, high-end product with cutting-edge technology that will appeal to early adopters. Actually, Harvard’s Clayton Christensen argued the opposite in his groundbreaking book on business innovation, The Innovator’s Dilemma. As Christensen pointed out again and again, “disruptive technologies were exactly those that did not appeal to entrenched market leaders because they tended to under-perform existing technologies and served a less-profitable consumer demographic.” (Source: Dominic Basulto)

Taking Christensen’s insight on disruptive innovation (summarized so well by Basulto) as the starting point, we could just as easily extend that thought to say that those innovations that are simpler, cheaper and offer value to the less profitable—those successful at the Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP), in other words—are the ones which contain seeds of disruption in markets outside of their intended audience.