They say a recession is when your friend loses their job but a depression is when you lose yours. By that definition, it’s now a depression. Yes, I lost my job as VP of Disruptive Technologies at AMR Research. Paradoxically, however, this now lets me begin blogging as I don’t have to worry about a byzantine approval process but instead have only to ask myself “do I have the time and energy?”
The time: most certainly. Right before the new year, I ruptured my quadriceps tendon and underwent surgery on January 5. For at least another month, I’m largely confined to the house with my leg in a hip-to-ankle brace. Every hour or two, I’ll get out of bed and hobble around on a walker to get the blood flowing, but beyond that, I’m not going anywhere so I do have the time. The energy? As you might imagine, it took me several days to get my head around the double whammy of surgery-and-rehab and losing-my-job. OK…it’ll take more than a few days to get my head around that. But I’m optimistic about the future, mine and the technologies I’ve been looking at for years now.
And so I begin to blog about disruptive technologies. Those of you who are familiar with my research for the last year know that I defined four pillars of disruption:
- Social networking and other community-based technologies,
- Mobility,
- Cloud computing, and
- Alternative (typically ad-supported) business models.
This is certainly a broad agenda and I’ll try to do justice to it here. If you want to join the conversation, by all means please do. If you need someone to look at your business and help with strategy, messaging and positioning, I’m your man (and for now, I’ve got the time). Thanks for joining me here and let’s all survive the beginning of 2009 and thrive as the year goes on.
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Jonathan Yarmis is Doctor Disruptive 
Good on you, JY. I’ll be an avid reader – I’d study your weather forecasts if you did them because of the insight I know you’d impart.
There are five other posts here that I haven’t read yet – I’m going to thoroughly enjoy them as well as make the most of your being laid up for the next few weeks by reading the rest of your output.
Sorry, does that come across as callous? What I meant to say was ‘get well soon, buddy!’
Sorry to hear about the double-whammy JY. But if I know you – you’ll make the best of it!
Interesting list of “pillars”. Having not been privy to your research – very curious as to what’s behind each of these listed disruptions. Can you provide a summary of your thinking behind your choices? I can see where you’re coming from – but knowing you – I know there’s more behind this than a logical list. For instance, the overlaps here really fascinate me – represent some of the real potential impact here.
Anyway, hope you’re feeling better. Looking forward to reading more.
Sorry to hear about the injury and the new quantity of free time. Send me of a personal e-mail address when you have the time so that we can keep in touch — I will take you out to breakfast again when you are up and able. I may have a few business ideas that we (and others) might wish to mutually explore.
Drop me a line…