Dvorak Disrupted

John Dvorak's recently published article The Myth of Disruptive Technologies is a case in point of why you shouldn't listen to journalists who aren't technologists.

He starts out on the inflammatory side labelling Clayton Christensen's idea as "the biggest crock of the new millenium".  Then, he says the problem with our society is that we rely upon such false-premise concepts to make blind business decisions.   He virtually discounts the idea that good business models are useful in making such decisions, and rather than any sound logical basis for tearing apart Christensen's work, he uses anecdotal, spurious, and sometimes false descriptions of his hindsight about the computer industry to declare that nothing has ever been disruptive.  Further, he proposes no alternative way of thinking.

There are certainly more models of technological change than Christensen's.  While Dvorak hints at this at the end of his article, I really don't think he has a very good idea himself of what happens in the industry and why.  If so, I wish he'd enlighten us.

For myself, Christnsen's notions have been extremely valuable and I highly recommend his books.  Don't take them as gospel please, but clearly this is a step in the right direction at coming up with an analytical language for determining the business drivers for technological change.

Comments

[jurgen]

Ever since I first read him ("Devil's Advocate" in MacUser or MacWorld or MacSomething), his job has been to provoke. He does this pretty well, most of the time. He says something outlandish, attacks a sacred cow, or generally just acts like a dickhead. Then, people talk about him and his words. Most people will disagree, and because he's usually a passionate writer, the disagreements are usually passionate, and hey presto, magazines are sold. It's the TV Talent Content Judge Syndrome. Be contrary and wacky but passionate, get ratings.

It's a pity he's not clever enough to provoke people in certain directions, or provoke them in such a way that they will come to a new realisation without having to have been explicitly told something. That would be quality reading. Most of the time, Dvorak is just a waste of bits.