Umair Haque has a nice – very unHBR – conversation started over at HBR (of all places).
He has a thought-provoking post about hacking and innovation, of which one paragraph resonated with me:
Big problems arenβt solved overnight, and they often canβt be solved in a tightly structured way. Hacking goes (way) beyond the limits of structured, rigid thinking.
It’s another way of looking at how people beyond your own industry, own networks and own paradigms, can blindside your business. It also ties into my thinking about the speed of disruptive innovation today – as your business becomes digitalised, the barriers to innovation fall. Hackers have always been on the edges, the fringes and the periphery, and Umair follows this thread well.
What business model would you like to hack?
Banking? Too late – Zopa and Prosper are already there.
Airlines? Too late – Ryanair did it.
Top of my list – until lately – was roaming charges on GSM mobile networks. Who hacked that business model? Skype via Fring via Symbian (read Nokia N95)
Haque (Hack?) also implores us to find new business ideas that solve real problems. He says that millions of dollars are being poured Web 2.0 businesses that may never earn a dollar in return, whilst we have yet to solve the really big problems like poverty, energy and environmental issues.
I’m inclined to agree.