Spotting a disruptive change - emails and smart phones
I had a couple of versions of blackberries in 2006 and even into 2007. You were not a business person of substance if you didn't have a blackberry back then. But when Apple launched the iPhone, initially it was the 'cool' folks who got one, and the business folks stuck to the blackberry. I remember the passionate debated people would have about hot much easier it was to type on a blackberry than on a touchscreen smart phone.
For a while in 2007 I thought so as well, and I thought Blackberry would have apps too. But the first time I played with an iPhone, I realized that it was actually more effective to not write long emails on the phone. Ralph was a Board Director in my company then and we'd have long discussions on how to communicate effectively. I found that the biggest change was that as I wrote fewer long business emails on my iPhone, I got into the habit of scheduling when I did most of my writing. By writing most of my business emails early in the day and late in the evening, it gave me a chance to put emails in others' inboxes, so they spent most of the day playing catch up and I had time to proactively think about the company, rather than being reactive to other's emails most of the day.
So much is written about iPhones, but I find very few thoughts on how it got us all into being more proactive than reactive in our business thinking and communication. This is a huge paradigm shift effected by Apple on businesses, in my mind.
If there ever was an example of the froth in the market buying up incumbent shares and not spotting a disruptive change, look at what happened to the blackberry stock in 2007....