When Tribeca Film Festival co-founder Craig Hatkoff first started the Disruptive Innovation Awards in 2010, he had inspired the by body of work of Harvard Business School’s Professor Clay Christenson considered many, in not most, to be the world’s most influential business thinker.  His landmark 1997 book, "The Innovator's Dilemma," inspired the likes of Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos.   Christensen changed how the world thinks about innovation explaining why great companies are designed to fail at world- changing innovation and it’s why two guys in a garage – think Bill Gates and Paul Allen or Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak—who come up with the big breakthroughs decimating the industry leaders overnight. Nearly 20 years later Christensen’s theory of disruptive innovation is still the prevailing theory of change in the world of technology and has begun to spread to many new domains.

At the time I didn't fully understand the concept or the award; it seemed to me, perhaps over simplifying, that when it comes to disruptive innovation “less is more”. Game-changing products and services don’t have to be perfect or even great- they just have to be simpler, cheaper, easier to user and be good enough. In a funny way disruptive innovations were of like rock & roll. And rock & roll was itself a disruptive innovation. And that did appeal to me.

 Disruptive innovation is a paradox that runs against the grain of every major corporation that keeps trying to make their already perfectly good products better and better. And that’s where they fall into the trap. Their products become too good, too complicated and too expensive for the existing consumer. Consider the $15 transistor radios of the 1950’s and 60’s. They were pretty crappy but they were plenty good enough for a day at the beach or to listen to the world series while sitting in class. Yes, the transistor radio, and later, the SONY Walkman were inferior but the real job was to make music mobile and inexpensive.  These products  added a huge new population of consumers that the leading electronics companies weren’t even thinking about.  

Think about the MP3 file, initially rejected by the record industry; they unwisely determined it wasn’t good enough for audiophiles—their perceived core consumer. But two more guys in a garage, Shaun Fanning and Sean Parker, put that myth to rest when they launched Napster that was shut down for copyright infringement. It turns out millions of tech-savvy college and high school kids, who couldn’t afford to buy the latest album, loved the idea of free file-sharing even though it ultimately turned out to be illegal. But the horse was out of the barn.  It was clear to Steve Jobs that the MP3 was going to change the music business forever.  While Napster failed Apple’s iTunes and the MP3 file dominate the music business.

By the beginning of the new century, the tectonic nature of disruptive innovation theory had spread across the globe like a tsunami after an earthquake.  Every one was talking about disruption this and innovation that. Christensen himself became concerned that the term disruptive innovation was being over-used and things were getting a bit out of control.  And that’s where the Disruptive Innovation Awards come.  Christensen’s original theory explains some innovations extremely well and others… not so much. There were lots of anomalies that Christensen wanted to better understand. It turns out that pop culture itself plays a huge role in successful disruption.  And where better to discover the latest trends in pop culture than at the Tribeca Film Festival.

 in 2010, as 65 people in a screening room; today 1,000 people attend the award ceremony that recognizes innovators who are disrupting the status quo. Each year the roster of honorees is an eclectic mix of people ranging from world famous notables to those the audience has never heard of before. These are people changing the world for the better. Disruptive innovation is not about incremental change; it celebrates radical change that leads to nothing short of revolution.

 Simply put, the concept involved tktktktk.  Seven years later, the DIA event has become one of the major highlights of the annual Tribeca Film Festival and a highly regarded and coveted prize. As a longtime music journalist, I have contributed in getting music honorees, and in addition to the hundreds of people from the worlds of politics, science, medicine, philanthropy and the arts who have received this award, in the world of music, we have honored Keith Richards, Justin Bieber, Rick Rubin, Kanye West, and Lin-Manuel Miranda. Keith's award was for open G tuning using only 5 strings and 3 notes instead of 6 strings and 5 notes. Justin Bieber was honored for being the first global super-star discovered on YouTube. Rick Rubin's was for starting the Def Jam hip hop label from his dorm room at NYU; Rick and Kanye were honored together for their groundbreaking work with the 808 drum kit synthesizer whose kick drum beat was the soul of hip-hop. And this past year, the DIA honored Lin Manuel Miranda for bringing history and hip hop together and changing the world of Broadway with his extraordinary, Tony award-winning "Hamilton."

When it comes to music, there are many candidates for both "innovators" and "disruptors." But what Craig Hatkoff has always pointed out to me, especially, is that there are many ways of looking at something. And while I personally might not immediately agree with an honoree such as lightening rod Glenn Beck opposed to, say designer Norma Kamali - while I'm much more pro-the Bard Prison Initiative project than I am towards Twitter - there are reasons for recognizing people from all walks of life, both sides of the aisle, so to speak, and this is why Justin Beiber and Lin-Manuel Miranda can co-exist as Fellows in the Disruptor Foundation.

And after all to really understand disruption and innovation you only have to remember one thing.  It’s only rock & roll.

To be continued. 
--- Lisa Robinson