Thomas Davenport on what makes an idea “take off”

Here is an article written by Thomas Davenport for the Harvard Business blog. To check out other articles and resources and/or sign up for a free subscription to Harvard Business Daily Alerts, please visit dailyalert@email.harvardbusiness.org.

What Makes an Idea Take Off?

The title of this blog series used to be “The Next Big Thing,” which meant that it addressed why some business and management ideas take off, and some don’t. The trouble is, I didn’t know the answer. Maybe that’s why the blog no longer has a name other than my own! But I’m still obsessed with the diffusion of managerial innovations.

There is little doubt, for example, that the topic of analytics — the systematic analysis of data for decision-making — has taken off. And I don’t just say this because I’ve co-authored (with Jeanne Harris and Bob Morison) a new book on the topic, Analytics at Work: Smarter Decisions, Better Results) There is plenty of other evidence.

Global IT and services firms are making big investments in analytics. For example, SAS and Accenture announced an enhanced effort to support customers with analytics last week, building on the creation of a new Accenture Analytics group. IBM announced a big new Business Analytics and Optimization services organization last April and acquired SPSS, a long-time analytics software provider, in July. Meanwhile, Oracle claims that it’s “#1 in business analytics,” which seems a dubious claim. But it’s clear that the vendors think there is big dough to be made in analytics, and they’re gearing up to make it.

OK, the big question: Why is this happening now? There are several secular trends that might explain the rise of analytics, including the increasing amount of data, more powerful hardware and software, more trained analytical professionals, etc. However, these have all been rising for decades, so I’m not quite sure why things have exploded over the last couple of years.

I did predict that analytics would take off, which is why I wrote Competing on Analytics. I might even be tempted to think that I had something to do with the rise of this idea, but evidence to the contrary is all too visible. Before that book I wrote one called Thinking for a Living about knowledge-worker productivity. Now there’s an important topic — everyone points to Peter Drucker’s comment that it is the most important economic problem of the age, and indeed it is a central problem for both countries and companies. OK, but why hasn’t it taken off? Why don’t big companies address the issue? Why don’t IT vendors and consultants focus on the problem? Why, most importantly (in my self-centered brain, anyway), did I not sell a tenth as many books on that issue as on analytics?

At least analytics and knowledge-worker productivity are important topics; both can drive fortunes and life chances. But some things take off that have little redeeming social or business value. Need I bring up Twitter again? I wrote about it in my last blog, and received lots of comments. I suspect this post will receive fewer. If you want to see the relative level of the world’s focus on analytics, knowledge-worker productivity, and Twitter, click here. Twitter appears to be getting 20 times the searches of “analytics” and an infinite number more than “knowledge-worker productivity.” What explains this vast disparity? Can Twitter cure cancer, solve poverty, or even make any money for your company?

If you do comment on this post — and I hope you do — please provide an opinion, some experience, or some data on the issue of why certain managerial innovations prosper, and some don’t. I’ll send a free copy of my new book to the commenter with the best answer (as judged by me). If you don’t have an answer but like someone else’s answer, the judge can be swayed by public opinion.

* * *

To comment, please visit dailyalert@email.harvardbusiness.org.

John Baldoni on how to defend your idea without being defensive

Here is an excerpt from article written by John Baldoni for the Harvard Business blog. To read the complete article, check out other articles and resources, and/or sign up for a free subscription to Harvard Business Daily Alerts, please visit dailyalert@email.harvardbusiness.org.

* * *

Getting behind an idea means imbuing it with our conviction and our passion. Such commitment is vital when pushing for an initiative or suggestion that you think is important to implement. This enthusiasm also helps you bring others to your cause. But it can also be your worst enemy when someone, such as your boss, pushes back.

Since you are so enamored of your idea, your instinct is to protect it as you might a child. (Just think of the common phrase, “This project is my baby.”) Big mistake! This puts you on the defensive.

When you face criticism you need to defend yourself without being defensive. The latter opens you to additional criticism because very often defensive will provoke negative behaviors such as lashing out or shutting down. You become caught in the moment and the niceties of polite discourse go out the window. It is fine to be passionate but you want to avoid becoming overly passionate, that is, unwilling and unable to listen to others.

Maintaining an even keel in the face of skepticism or even hostility is a vital attribute to leadership presence, the kind of aura that you need to radiate if you ever hope to instill follower ship. And when people are whaling on your ideas it is easy to get caught up in the heat of the moment. The challenge is not to overreact and to separate personality from ideology. Here’s how.

[Here is the first of several eminently sensible – and practical – suggestions. To read the complete article, check out other articles and resources, and/or sign up for a free subscription to Harvard Business Daily Alerts, please visit dailyalert@email.harvardbusiness.org.]

Be prepared. Whenever you propose an idea there are certain to be people who do not understand the idea, do not like the idea, or simply don’t like you. So prepare yourself for objections. Consider who will say what and why. For example, one colleague may say your initiative is cost prohibitive, another might question its efficacy, and another might wonder about its timing. Develop comeback arguments to address concerns. Use such arguments either preemptively (before the criticism is raised) or after the objection is voiced.

* * *

Defending yourself without being defensive will require practice. You can practice by having trusted colleagues pepper you with questions about your ideas. This will help you refine your speaking style. Work on relaxing your facial muscles, or even smiling — you want to radiate control. You are not in control of how others react, but you are in control of yourself, which is essential to demonstrating leadership in the face of opposition.

John Baldoni is a leadership consultant, coach, and speaker. He is the author of eight books, including Lead Your Boss: The Subtle Art of Managing Up. See his archived blog for hbr.org at http://blogs.hbr.org/baldoni/.

Marshall Goldsmith on empowering your employees to empower themselves

Here is an excerpt from article written by Marshall Goldsmith for the Harvard Business blog. To read the complete article, check out other articles and resources, and/or sign up for a free subscription to Harvard Business Daily Alerts, please visit dailyalert@email.harvardbusiness.org.

* * *

As a manager or leader, do you let your people assume more responsibility when they are able? Do you know when that is, or do you keep telling yourself that they aren’t ready yet?

In my travels from organization to organization, I talk with thousands of people every year who want to be treated as “partners” rather than as employees. They want information to flow up as well as down. But, oftentimes, leaders do not want to give up control.

I knew a CEO who was the leader of one of the world’s largest global organizations. He received feedback that he was too stubborn and opinionated. He learned that he needed to do a better job of letting others to make decisions and to focus less on being right himself. He practiced this simple technique for one year: before speaking, he would take a breath and ask himself, “Is it worth it?” He learned that 50% of the time his comments may have been right on, but they weren’t worth it. He quickly began focusing more on empowering others and letting them take ownership and commitment for decisions, and less on his own need to add value.

Your employees understand their jobs. They know their tasks, roles, and functions within the organization, and it’s time for you to let them do what they need to do to get the job done. But there is a critical point that is often missed: It isn’t possible for a leader to “empower” someone to be accountable and make good decisions. People have to empower themselves. Your role is to encourage and support the decision-making environment, and to give employees the tools and knowledge they need to make and act upon their own decisions. By doing this, you help your employees reach an empowered state.

The process does take longer — employees will only believe they are empowered when they are left alone to accomplish results over a period of time — but it’s effective and worth the time. If a company has a history of shutting down or letting go of initiators, for instance, the leader can’t just tell employees, “You are empowered to make decisions.”

* * *

To read the complete article, check out other articles and resources, and/or sign up for a free subscription to Harvard Business Daily Alerts, please visit dailyalert@email.harvardbusiness.org.

* * *

Marshall Goldsmith is recognized as one of the world’s leading executive educators and coaches. His 30 books include What Got You Here Won’t Get You There and MOJO.

Gill Corkindale on how to get the pay raise you want

Here is an excerpt from article written by Gill Corkindale for the Harvard Business blog. To read the complete article, check out other articles and resources, and/or sign up for a free subscription to Harvard Business Daily Alerts, please visit dailyalert@email.harvardbusiness.org.

* * *

I recently met a coach who specialised in helping women executives get the pay rises they wanted. Even though they held senior roles, he said, many of them were unable to find the right words — or the right moment — to pitch for a raise. They still laboured under the assumption that if they did a great job, a great salary would automatically follow. His job was to help them understand their worth, build the case for a raise and find the confidence to go in to their boss and negotiate.

In my own practice, I have come across many exceptional women — and men — who find it difficult to ask for a raise. It is partly a matter of confidence, partly pride. Some find it distasteful to talk openly about money and highlight their value to the company. Others question their own performance when recognition and reward do not automatically follow their hard work. Employers are often prepared to exploit such discomfort. One of my clients, a very senior woman banker, demanded a raise only when she discovered that her peer’s junior report was earning far more than she was — even though he had considerably less experience and responsibility. She told me that sheer fury had driven her into her boss’s office to demand a raise.

Navigating the complexities of salaries is never easy, but it has become even more difficult during the economic crisis of the last two years. When your company is restructuring, shedding jobs, and making deep cuts, it is hard to ask for a raise. But it is especially important to look after your career during these times. So what is the best approach to getting a raise and managing your personal career capital?

[Corkindale provides a multi-step process. Here is the first. To read the complete article, check out other articles and resources, and/or sign up for a free subscription to Harvard Business Daily Alerts, please visit dailyalert@email.harvardbusiness.org.]

The first step is good preparation and research:

Ask yourself why you are seeking a pay rise now. It might be that you feel temporarily undervalued. On the other hand, your salary might have plummeted relative to that of your peers. If this is the case, how do your feelings about your salary affect your performance? Consider whether you need to address other aspects of your compensation, such as your bonus, pension, stock options, or leave entitlement.

Look at the wider situation. Consider how economic conditions might be affecting the company. Is it performing well? If not, are its problems long or short-term? Ask yourself whether this is the right time to ask for a pay rise and whether your company is a position to give anyone a raise. If not, postpone your conversation for a more appropriate moment.

Rate your market value honestly. How does your role and salary compare with that of your peers inside and outside the company? Think about how you are using your skills, contacts, and experience to make a difference — are you performing well, achieving your targets, being a great team player, and making a wider contribution to the company?

Manage your profile. Make sure that you are well-known in the company beyond the scope of your own boss and team. Networking is vital here. Create opportunities to demonstrate your value to the company and make sure that you highlight your contribution at appraisals.

* * *

To read the complete article, check out other articles and resources, and/or sign up for a free subscription to Harvard Business Daily Alerts, please visit dailyalert@email.harvardbusiness.org.

* * *

Gill Corkindale is an executive coach and writer based in London, focusing on global management and leadership. She was formerly management editor of the Financial Times.

Robert G. Eccles on sustainability’s “secret weapon”

Here is an excerpt from article written by Robert G. Eccles for the Harvard Business blog. To read the complete article, check out other articles and resources, and/or sign up for a free subscription to Harvard Business Daily Alerts, please visit dailyalert@email.harvardbusiness.org.

* * *

The Annual Report as Sustainability’s Secret Weapon

Spring brings April showers, May flowers — and a flurry of annual reports. Mine have been arriving in the mail, and I am always interested to see what the companies I own stock in have to say about themselves in this ritualistic document filled with financial information, different types of narratives, and lots of pretty pictures.

The amount of detail and the level of complexity in the financial section have grown considerably in response to the increasing onslaught of accounting rules and regulations. What’s more, since going green is now red hot, a growing number of companies — especially in Europe and Japan — are also starting to issue Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) or Sustainability reports. Sometimes these are mailed with the annual report, but more often they have to be ordered separately or downloaded from the company’s Web site. Unfortunately, the two reports rarely add up to something greater than the sum of their parts.

This is a huge problem. A sustainable society requires that all companies be committed to sustainable strategies. Increasing social expectations regarding a company’s commitment to sustainability mean that firms that ignore this do so at their own risk. BMW Group has been a leader in recognizing this. Several years ago, it issued a Sustainable Value Report detailing energy consumed, water consumed, waste removed, and volatile organic compounds per vehicle produced. Scoring high in all these categories, BMW believes that its reputation as the world’s “greenest” car company plays an important role in brand awareness and customer satisfaction, factors that contribute to revenue growth.

So how can shareholders and other stakeholders know if a company’s commitment to a sustainable society is contributing to a sustainable strategy that will create value for shareholders over the long term? The answer lies in combining the annual and CSR/sustainability reports into something I call “One Report,” which provides the essential information on a company’s financial, environmental, social, and governance performance and shows the relationships between them. This kind of Integrated reporting also involves leveraging the Internet to provide more detailed information to all a company’s stakeholders while also providing them with the opportunity to engage in a virtual dialogue on these matters…

Given the importance of sustainability, I think companies have an ethical obligation to practice integrated reporting, and investors have a similar obligation to demand it. In fact, I believe the SEC should make it a requirement. As we all try to come up with solutions to the problems of the planet, integrated reporting is one way to make sure that companies are part of the process.

* * *

To read the complete article, check out other articles and resources, and/or sign up for a free subscription to Harvard Business Daily Alerts, please visit dailyalert@email.harvardbusiness.org.

* * *

Robert G. Eccles was a member of the HBS faculty from 1979 until 1993, when he left for a career in the private sector. In 2007, he returned to the School, where he teaches in both the MBA and Executive Education programs. His most recent book, co-authored with Michael P. Krzus, is One Report: Integrated Reporting for a Sustainable Strategy (Wiley, 2010).

Rosabeth Moss Kanter on four strategies for coping with disruption

Here is an excerpt from article written by Rosabeth Moss Kanter for the Harvard Business blog. To read the complete article, check out other articles and resources, and/or sign up for a free subscription to Harvard Business Daily Alerts, please visit dailyalert@email.harvardbusiness.org.

* * *

Surprise! Four Strategies for Coping with Disruptions

Surprises are the new normal, and they are not fun. I was about to write a joyous paean to Earth Day and the glories of celebrating the great outdoors, when volcanic ash closed European airports. My flights to a global health summit were cancelled, making me cranky about nature instead. I had just returned from Brazil, where floods disrupted travel in Rio, and mudslides destroyed neighborhoods, following earthquakes in Chile and Haiti. But volcanic ash? Would any company’s scenario planners have imagined a blanket of gray silicate particles covering Europe?

We have enough to deal with in terms of financial crises, currency fluctuations, disruptive technologies, job restructurings, shortages of vital drugs, populist rebellions, possible pandemics, and terrorist threats without adding 2010′s devastating earthquakes and extraordinary weather events. Et tu, Mother Nature?

Coping with the unexpected is a leadership imperative. In every endeavor, the ability to recover quickly separates winners from losers, whether they are reacting to fumbles in a sports match or curve balls thrown by external events. I summarize the challenge of managing volatility in a simple equation: MTBS = or < MTMD. MTBS is the mean time between surprises, which is shrinking. MTMD is the mean time to make a decision, which better be fast.

Here are four strategies to speed response and minimize the impact of disruptions.

[Here’s one of the four. To read the complete article, check out other articles and resources, and/or sign up for a free subscription to Harvard Business Daily Alerts, please visit dailyalert@email.harvardbusiness.org.]

• Backup. Leaders should know the benefits of alternatives. Even if Plan B cannot always be rehearsed and ready to go, mental flexibility can prevent specifications and expectations from becoming rigid barriers to rapid redirection. Great innovators often pursue parallel development paths. Great companies stress efficiency but build in slack and cross-train their people, as Cemex does. Although the recession-stimulated tendency during the recession is to run tight, some overlap and redundancy makes it easier to respond quickly.

Similar strategies helped my colleagues deal with the volcanic ash fallout. When I reached the honcho for the global health summit about my cancelled flights, his European team was already in high resiliency mode preparing Plans B and C. He said, “Crises like this shows how innovative and creative we can be. It also allows us to show our character in service of our partners and constituents. Perhaps we can adjust schedules and open it up to a bigger audience.” They did.

* * *

To read the complete article, check out other articles and resources, and/or sign up for a free subscription to Harvard Business Daily Alerts, please visit dailyalert@email.harvardbusiness.org.

* * *

Rosabeth Moss Kanter is a professor at Harvard Business School and the author of Confidence and SuperCorp. Connect with her on Facebook or at Twitter.com/RosabethKanter.

Roberto Verganti on why “one size does not fit all” in innovation

Here is an excerpt from article written by Roberto Verganti for the Harvard Business blog. To read the complete article, check out other articles and resources, and/or sign up for a free subscription to Harvard Business Daily Alerts, please visit dailyalert@email.harvardbusiness.org.

* * *

One Size Does Not Fit All in Innovation (and Never Will)

I’m worried that the discussion about innovation is losing its vitality and that a handful of beliefs are becoming dangerous dogmas. Two that worry me the most are:

Innovation and design should be user-centered — i.e., users are the first and foremost source of insights. Innovation processes should, therefore, start from observation of mainstream or extreme users.

The crowd outperforms the elite — i.e., thanks to the web, firms may now leverage the power of communities of scientists, creatives, and users to develop innovations. Many ideas from large communities are better than a good idea from an outstanding innovation team.

In a recent blog, I questioned the universal effectiveness of user-centered processes. My point was that user-centered innovation is ineffective to deal with environmental sustainability. I was surprised to notice that instead of focusing on the specific subject at hand (sustainability), many of the people who participated in the discussion defended user-centricity as an incontrovertible principle.

I fear the same narrow-mindedness is dominating the debate about the value of crowdsourcing vs. elite thinkers. If you try to argue that in some situations an elite thinker is better than the crowd, you’ll be quickly derided.

Is the discussion and the practice of innovation at risk of becoming static and mono-tone? Is the community in search of a Holy Grail of innovation — i.e., the one perfect model that works in any situation and forever? Given that innovation is about differentiation and evolution, this would be dangerous for corporations.

The reality is:

One size does not fit all in innovation. Different innovation problems require different approaches. There is no method that is always good. In a 2008 article in the Harvard Business Review, Gary Pisano and I demonstrated that crowdsourcing is not always the best approach to collaboration. What is the best approach depends on several factors, including the distribution of talent among scientists and the cost of testing a proposed solution.

* * *

To read the complete article, check out other articles and resources, and/or sign up for a free subscription to Harvard Business Daily Alerts, please visit dailyalert@email.harvardbusiness.org.

* * *

Roberto Verganti is the author of Design-Driven Innovation: Changing the Rules of Competition by Radically Innovating What Things Mean and has pioneered research on the intersection of strategy, design and technology management. A professor of the management of innovation at Politecnico di Milano, Verganti also is a member of the board of the European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management. He has served as an executive advisor, coach, and educator at a variety of firms, including Ferrari, Ducati, Whirlpool, Xerox, Samsung, Hewlett-Packard, Barilla, Nestlè, STMicroelectronics, and Intuit.

“Why Are 25 Hedge Fund Managers Worth 658,000 teachers?”

Here is an excerpt from article written by Umair Hague for the Harvard Business blog. To read the complete article, check out other articles and resources, and/or sign up for a free subscription to Harvard Business Daily Alerts, please visit dailyalert@email.harvardbusiness.org.

The Efficient Community Hypothesis

The visionary Stowe Boyd recently kindly invited me to give a talk at his awesome Social Business Edge conference next week. I couldn’t make it, unfortunately — so here’s the talk I was going to give instead. Enjoy!!

“Why Are 25 Hedge Fund Managers Worth 658,000 teachers?” A poignant question that was recently posed to me on Twitter, it makes your head — and your heart — hurt.

The answer has everything to do with the Efficient Market Hypothesis. Last weekend, the world’s most eminent economists gathered at King’s College, Cambridge. Their goal: soul searching — reflecting on not just the economic crisis, but on the crisis in modern economics, of which the EMH is a foundation.

Much maligned, often misunderstood, here, paraphrased, is what the EMH really says.

“The EMH, originally put forth by Eugene Fama of the University of Chicago in the 1960s, states that the prices of securities reflect all known information that impacts their value. No matter what definition is used, the hypothesis does not claim that the market price is always right.”

Italics are mine.

The upshot? Even when markets are efficient, they can still be of little social use, because they can result in dramatic mispricing. The result? Bubble, crash, and collapse: welcome back to 2009, 1989, or 1929.

And that’s where communities come in.

I’d like to advance a hypothesis. Call it the Efficient Community Hypothesis. It says: where efficient markets incorporate “all known information,” efficient communities incorporate “the best known information.” An efficient market is a tool for sorting the largest quantity of info. But an efficient community is a tool for sorting the highest quality info.

On its own, the EMH is simply about informational efficiency: that prices incorporate “all known information.” Where it falls down is in terms of informational productivity: whether prices incorporate accurate, valid, and reliable information — high quality knowledge, instead of low-quality noise. Incorporating all known information doesn’t mean incorporating good information.

The point of communities is, when you think about it, to ensure that people and organizations don’t just get any old information — but the right, the best information. They should filter out bad, inaccurate information from unreliable sources and replace it with its opposite. They are, in short, the economic mirror image of markets: where efficient markets ensure information efficiency, efficient communities ensure information productivity.

* * *

To read the complete article, check out other articles and resources, and/or sign up for a free subscription to Harvard Business Daily Alerts, please visit dailyalert@email.harvardbusiness.org.

* * *

Umair Haque is Director of the Havas Media Lab. He also founded Bubblegeneration, an agenda-setting advisory boutique that shaped strategies across media and consumer industries.

Walter Kiechel III on the power of strategic “pull”

Here is an excerpt from article written by Walter Kiechel III for the Harvard Business blog. To read the complete article, check out other articles and resources, and/or sign up for a free subscription to Harvard Business Daily Alerts, please visit dailyalert@email.harvardbusiness.org.

Strategy by Any Other Name

A friend who books speakers for business events tells me strategy experts aren’t much in demand these days; indeed, they haven’t been for years. (Except in Japan.) Until recently audiences still sought out thinker/talkers on innovation or leadership. Of late, though, the rabble has ears only for economists or the occasional journalist who can shed light on the Global Financial Crisis (and perhaps wave a pitchfork in Wall Street’s direction).

So much for us who wear the big “S” on our sandwich-boards. You may, if you’re so inclined, shed a tear for us wallflowers, but weep not for our underlying subject. While I’m thoroughly biased, it strikes me that strategy shows up all over the place in contemporary management literature, albeit sometimes under different cover. It’s not exactly a case, per Jerry Lee Lewis, of “He’s walking in my tracks, but he can’t fill my shoes.” More that the latest marching bands are parading down strategy’s road, and lengthening it, but under banners bearing new devices, not the tattered regimental colors of old.

Take Mark Johnson’s Seizing the White Space or the precursor, McKinsey-Award-winning article in HBR, “Reinventing Your Business Model,” by Johnson, Clay Christensen, and Henning Kagermann. Johnson’s four-box framework for a business model contains all the key elements of a strategy — customers, costs, and competitors — plus some features that look like a recapitulation of strategy’s history.

The “customer value proposition” analyzes the job your product or service will be doing for your customers. Johnson’s “profit formula” squarely addresses your “cost structure” but also has, in its “revenue model” subcomponent, a nod to market share, which means thinking about your competition. To any student of strategy’s history, Johnson’s “key resources” quadrant will immediately recall Birger Wernerfelt’s resource-based view of the firm, and maybe its more popularized incarnation, core competences, courtesy of Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad. And if those weren’t flashbacks enough, the fourth box in Johnson’s framework, core processes, should evoke lots of memories of the late 1980s and early 1990s when strategy seemed all about competing on capabilities.

None of this is to take away from the originality of Johnson’s work, but only to say that he and his HBR co-authors are building on the original paradigm of strategy. Which is what you’re supposed to do with a paradigm. In a few pages of his book, Johnson invokes the glorious history of strategy, including Alfred Chandler’s famous observation that strategy follows structure. And this in service to reminding us of an ever-important piece of wisdom, namely, not to confuse a mechanical strategic-planning process with the actual creation of strategy. Modern strategy has always been disruptive; its partisans will applaud the ambition to reinvent one’s business model.

* * *

To read the complete article, check out other articles and resources, and/or sign up for a free subscription to Harvard Business Daily Alerts, please visit dailyalert@email.harvardbusiness.org.

* * *

Walter Kiechel III is the former Editorial Director of Harvard Business Publishing, former Managing Editor at Fortune magazine, and author of The Lords of Strategy: The Secret Intellectual History of the New Corporate World. He is based in New York City and Boston. You are welcome to visit http://lordsofstrategy.com/.

Ron Ashkenas on “rapid disruption’s next victim”

Here is an excerpt from article written by Ron Ashkenas for the Harvard Business blog. To read the complete article, check out other articles and resources, and/or sign up for a free subscription to Harvard Business Daily Alerts, please visit dailyalert@email.harvardbusiness.org.

* * *

Over the last two decades a number of new technologies have become so ubiquitous that we now take them for granted and don’t realize how much they have changed our lives and our world. Consider, for example, the Internet and our ability to search for information easily and quickly; the use of GPS for personal navigation; and handheld devices that can store music and video.

What’s common with all of these technologies is that they have created “solutions” that are fast, inexpensive, and relatively simple to use — while quickly outmoding and disrupting long-standing industries that provided “old” and suddenly less competitive solutions. And it’s happened in the blink of an eye. Witness the struggles of postal services, newspapers, publishing companies, broadcast networks, retail video outlets, music producers, and many more.

One of the next candidates for rapid disruption is the airline industry. Everyone knows that airlines are under siege these days — from fluctuating fuel prices, security concerns, and an economic downturn that has reduced business travel. But what we (and industry executives) may not realize is that the biggest threat to the airlines is a disruptive set of solutions that will dramatically reduce the need for air travel altogether.

The “solutions” I’m referring to are virtual meetings — including teleconferences; web-based meetings attended on personal computers and handheld devices; and videoconferences. The problem that these solutions solve is how to get people together in real time in a way that they can interact naturally, build relationships, solve problems, and share information — without having to travel.

* * *

Ron Ashkenas is a managing partner of Robert H. Schaffer & Associates and a co-author of The GE Work-Out and The Boundaryless Organization. His latest book is Simply Effective.