About the Project

For years I have been fascinated by the question why do up to 80% of new innovative ideas fail in the marketplace? The Empathic Disruption is a book project driven by my passion for much needed creative, positive change, entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship can bring to the world. The title of the project comes from the marriage of two ideas essential to the success of radical innovations. The empathic part deals with the critical importance of having a deep insight into the users’ mental model before plunging in. The disruptive part addresses the essential skills which increase the adoption rate of innovations attempting to disrupt the status quo. The project is an outcome of being involved with three startups; working with some very smart and enterprising folks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; designing user experiences for some of the biggest global brands and founding a course in innovation at an MBA program, at Schulich School of Business. Empathic Disruption is an intellectual framework for affecting positive change and a strategic toolkit for change makers. It has no single topic, because successful disruptive innovation is too complex for such narrow perspective. Instead what you have here is a mix of some of the smartest ideas and best practices from the many super creative folks I have met, worked with, talked to, interviewed and otherwise engaged with in my quest to help people who want to change the world do it better.

The Empathic Disruption book itself is divided into sections based on key disruptive innovation ingredients: resonance, technology, user experience and business model, all of which tie into the magic of the compelling value proposition. The very first section of the book deals with resonance or a deep insight into the users’ latent needs, which is the very first step of any successful venture. I cover five different approaches to gaining this critical insight. The two following sections guide the reader through the vital task of choosing the right technology for the job and blending that technology with a truly compelling user experience. The section on business models helps to asses the necessary resources, partnerships and monetization models needed to commercialize the idea. The final section deals with the successful diffusion of innovation. Every powerfully resonant value proposition needs to be shared with the influencers and early adopters, who spread new innovative solutions to the core of their respective social networks.

Some of the great people I worked with and interviewed for this project include: IDEO co-founder Bill Moggridge; OneWorld Health founder, Victoria Hale author of Theory U, Otto Scharmer; inventor, Dean Kamen; VC, Juan Enriquez, anthropologist, Grant McCracken; angel investor, Joi Ito; X Prize founder, Dr. Peter Diamandis; media scholar Henry Jenkins; author, Steven Johnson; MIT Media Lab’s founding faculty director Alex Pentland; designer Don Watt and Technology Review, editor in chief, Jason Pontin. Others, whose ideas contributed to the book include: Edwin Land, Roger Martin, Doug Engelbart, Steve Jobs, Robert Kozinets, Marshall McLuhan, Clayton Christensen, Patricia Moore, Jane Suri Fulton and Alexander Manu. This blog is in a way a tribute to all of the people whose ideas have contributed to the Empathic Disruption project.