Diversity of Perspective is Key to Disruptive Innovation

Get access now to all 12manage knowledge centers and discussion forums, including Disruptive Innovation. Completely free.     Log in

“All new ideas are combinations of old ideas, but not all idea combinations are created equal,” writes Frans Johannsen. An HBR article by Johansson tells how Mick Pearce designed the Eastgate office building in Harare, Zimbabwe. He based it on techniques he observed termites employ to stabilize the internal temperature of their nests. Remarkably, the Eastgate maintains an ambient temperature between 73-78°F (23-26°C) despite variances in external temperatures from 58-88°F (14-31°C). And the building uses only 10% of the energy needed by a similar, airco cooled building. Johannsen argues in his book that most innovation comes at the intersection of fields, and Pearce's building is just one example. Disruptive Innovation is (as Inigo Montoya might say) 'not what you think it means'. Many are under the mis-impression that disruptive innovation proceeds from newly developed disruptive technologies when in fact the bulk and most powerful disruptive innovations are novel combination (...) Read more? Sign up for free

		Charles Alter Consultant, United States
	Diversity of Thought for Disruptive Innovation Indeed diversity of thought from people of diverse (...)

		Bernhard Keim Business Consultant, Germany
	Barriers to Diversity May Result from Former Success Highly developed capabilities in existing products (...)

		Gabi Levin Israel
	Examples of Fusion of Fields / Diversity in Disruptive Innovation This concept has found its way into the class I wa (...)

		Bernhard Keim Business Consultant, Germany
	Where Spheres Intersect, New Life is Happening @Gabi Levin: Your last sentence reminds me of bio (...)

		Gabi Levin Israel
	Former Success Can Be the Worst Enemy The demise of many companies in the technology sec (...)

		Maurice Hogarth Consultant, United Kingdom
	Creativity from Diversity Here are some further builds for this topic: Cr (...)

		Arif ur Rehman Professor, Pakistan
	Ahead! Ahoy! Diversity to Creativity Being labelled as foolish (a failed outcome) is be (...)

		Maurice Hogarth Consultant, United Kingdom
	Labelled Foolish @Arif ur Rehman:Unfortunately ego in the majority (...)

		srinivas Lecturer, India
	A Combination of Curiosity and Diversity Leads to Innovation Diversity certainly leads to generation of new ide (...)