Why does Robert Scoble, Microsoft Blogger-in-Chief keep using the word disruptive?  Did he write this article just to illustrate how over used the word 'disruptive' is these days?

Everywhere you look someone is pointing out the next disruptive technology.  This term describes a condition that continually affects business and was developed and popularized by Clayton M. Christiansen based on broad body of research.  How can a company justify investing in an innovation that would appear to have no substantial market?  How can a company survive when most of its best inventions destroy its existing (usually cash cow) business model? 

In 1942, Joseph Schumpter coined the term creative destruction to describe the economic reality that innovative entrepreneurial ideas will eventually destroy established companies.  Christiansen illustrates that with famous technology examples.

So back to Scoble who got out of bed because he realized that Google is disrupting Microsoft's business. And then later asks the question: can your business be disrupted at all if you know its happening (or if your Blogger-in-Chief points it out to you)?

The answer is no.

 If Seagate knew that there was going to be a personal computer on every desktop, they would have manufactured a small footprint, low memory hard drive instead of telling the engineers who developed one that there was no market for it.  If Xerox knew that the personal computer (complete with WYSIWYG interface) was not going to destroy their existing business model of paper printers (but actually expand it) they would have kept funding development at Xerox PARC. 

If Disruptive Technologies were so easy to find and point out then bookies in Britain would calculate the odds and take bets on them (Honestly, they will bet on anything that has a finite number of outcomes).

Disruptive technology is about a lot more than a Google map API mash up.  It is about an invention that changes the way we behave or interact with our environment.  They are few and far between and most of them are laughed at initially.  Next time you are laughing at a new idea and asking 'who would ever use that', you should be asking is this the next big one?