James McQuivey (VP, Principal Analyst at Forrester Research):
Welcome to the new disruption.
“Things started to speed up at the end…” — Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Analyst, futurist, and author of Digital Disruption, James McQuivey, gave an example of how product cycles are speeding up: Apple took two years to sell the first two million I-Pads, while Microsoft took about two weeks to sell the first two millions androids. Okay, not quite “Apples” and oranges but one gets his point.
Change is accelerating at what might not seem to be people-friendly speed. But guess what? We humans seem to be adapting to the increasing whirl of the planet nicely. McQuivey wondered aloud about what might happens in a world where, after people internalize disruption, will then proceed to generate perpetual disruption. What then?
The digital disruption has placed us all in continual disruption. Change has become the only constant, where our lives become data that is mined by ever-changing, disposable companies. We may be on the verge of witnessing the death of the corporations, as they lose control of data and of the products that they create.
Share and share alike may become the next system of barter and economics, as litigation over possession and copyright of intellectual property becomes impossible to control. According to McGuivey, regulation by rule of law will become obsolete because things are changing too rapidly for regulation to keep up. Regulatory systems must crumble—because innovation and change will continue to happen faster and faster.
So, how can workers manage careers when the career path can careen through an array of pop-up companies? McQuivey suggested a new value system that focuses on individuals, leaving organizations out of the picture entirely. Talented contributors could have real-time stock exchanges of their worth as individuals, rated and valued as companies are today. In contrast to the idea of developing inside of large corporation, McQuivey said that It’s unethical and short-sighted to lock up a resource—a talented individual— into one company that restricts the talent from sharing their abilities for the greater good.
Since SxSW 2013, McQuivey has presented more on digital disruption at Touchcast. You can view the webinar from that event here: http://www.touchcast.com/disruptthis/ces_2014_roundup
Book: Digital Disruption, by James McQuivey. Kindle on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Disruption-Unleashing-Next-Innovation-ebook/dp/B009L7QD1S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1390354063&sr=8-1&keywords=Digital+Disruption%2C+by+James+McQuivey
More images from 2013 South by Southwest Interactive
http://www.flickr.com/photos/clairwiloh/sets/72157632980772104/
http://eventifier.co/event/sxsw13/clairwil
2013 SxSW Interactive Presentations on Soundcloud
Find out more about the South by Southwest Interactive Conference in Austin Texas
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