disrupt
disrupt – verbo
disruption – sostantivo numerabile e non numerabile
disrupter/disruptor – sostantivo numerabile
In Silicon Valley, belief in disruption has taken on a near religious tinge. All that disrupts is good; all that stands in disruption’s way (such as, say, San Francisco taxi companies or metropolitan daily newspapers) deserves to perish.
The crazy ones are disrupters, and disrupters are my favorite kind of people.
The event will feature over 40 world-class leaders, innovators, disruptors and thinkers.
Oggi prendiamo in esame la recente evoluzione subita dal verbo to disrupt e i suoi derivati, compresi l’aggettivo disruptive e il nome di agente disrupter o disruptor – fino a poco tempo fa abbastanza raro –, i quali hanno acquistato una connotazione perlopiù positiva che viaggia mano nella mano con il tradizionale significato negativo. I disrupters sono ammirati e la disruption è una meta a cui ambiscono le start-up e gli imprenditori d’assalto, ma com’è avvenuto il ribaltone?
La risposta sta nella tecnologia e più specificamente nella tecnologia che spodesta e rimpiazza quella vecchia, originando il cambiamento di una determinata attività; pensiamo a come il computer e il word processor hanno mandato in soffitta le macchine da scrivere, o alla fetta di mercato conquistata dalle app di car sharing a discapito delle aziende di taxi tradizionali. Certo, non c’è niente di nuovo in tutto questo, basta ricordare gli artigiani tessili inglesi che nell’Ottocento distruggevano i telai meccanici per protestare contro la disruption, il cambiamento, portato dalla rivoluzione industriale.
Origini del termine
La paternità del nuovo significato di to disrupt e i suoi derivati è attribuita a Clayton Christensen, che nella sua tesi di dottorato ad Harvard nel 1992 descrisse una teoria di “disruptive innovation”.
Traduzione di Loredana Riu
disrupt – verb
disruption – noun C and U
disrupter/disruptor – noun C
In Silicon Valley, belief in disruption has taken on a near religious tinge. All that disrupts is good; all that stands in disruption’s way (such as, say, San Francisco taxi companies or metropolitan daily newspapers) deserves to perish.
The crazy ones are disrupters, and disrupters are my favorite kind of people.
The event will feature over 40 world-class leaders, innovators, disruptors and thinkers.
Disrupt and its derivatives have recently undergone an interesting change in connotation. To disrupt something used to be regarded as negative, and a disruptive person or event was not viewed favourably, while disrupter was a fairly rare noun meaning someone who disturbs something, often a public event such as a meeting. (These words also have technical meanings in cell biology).
Although these meanings still exist, disrupt and its related nouns have acquired new and largely positive meanings. Disrupters are now heroes to many and disruption the aim of every start-up and every thrusting entrepreneur. How did this happen?
The answer, as so often, lies with technology, and specifically with new technologies that dramatically displace old ones, for example when computers and word processors replaced typewriters, or when ride-sharing apps stole a huge chunk of the market from traditional taxi firms. This kind of disruption is very profitable and beneficial for those doing the disrupting, much less so for the shorthand typist whose skills become obsolete, or the taxi driver struggling to find enough customers to make a living. Of course this pattern is nothing new: the hand weavers who smashed looms back in the 18th century were also objecting to disruption by the new mechanical machines; they just didn’t call it that.
Origin
The first use of the new meanings of disrupt and its associated nouns are ascribed to Clayton Christensen, whose 1992 Harvard DBA dissertation describes a theory of “disruptive innovation”.
