Showing results by author "Larry Downes"

Larry Downes, a fellow with the Accenture Institute for High Performance, and Paul F. Nunes, global managing director of research at the Accenture Institute for High Performance, uncover how a new kind of innovator is creating – and destroying – whole markets overnight.

Big Bang Disruptions are new products and services that enter the market better and cheaper than established products, seemingly overnight. Larry Downes and Paul F. Nunes offer critical insights and strategies companies are using not just to protect themselves but to create and appropriate disruptive innovations for themselves. The authors detail the four stages of big bang innovation and show leaders how to see disruptions headed their way - and take action before it’s too late.

Twenty years ago, when the commercial Internet was just a handful of static Web pages and links, I started a list of predictions that have since proved very, very wrong: “No one will ever buy a car on the Internet.”  “Our customers aren’t interested in trading stocks online — that’s what they pay us to do.”  “Consumers aren’t comfortable giving a website their credit card number.”

"The Gradual — Then Sudden — Disruption of Retail" is from the May 15, 2017 National section of The Washington Post. It was written by Larry Downes and narrated by Sam Scholl.

While digital life races ahead, the rest of our life, from law to business, struggles to keep up. Business strategists, lawyers, judges, regulators, and consumers have all been left behind, scratching their heads, frantically trying to figure out what they can and can't do. Some want to bring innovation to a standstill (or at least to slow it down) through lawsuits and regulation so they can catch their breath. Larry Downes provides an invaluable guide for these confusing times, exploring nine critical areas in which technology is dramatically rewriting the rules of business and life.

The Internet is celebrating some important milestones. Last week marked both the 40th anniversary of the first mobile connection and the 25th anniversary of the World Wide Web. Millennials can’t even remember what life was like without it and, even for us baby boomers, the changes to everyday activities have been at once profound and subtle.

Though the United States has made profound progress in making Internet access universally available, a new digital divide has emerged that defies conventional solutions. Since both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have promised to expand broadband opportunities if elected president, it’s crucial for future policy decisions that we understand who is still offline and why. According to the most recent findings of the Pew Research Center, 13 percent of Americans still do not use the Internet

"The Future of TV Is Arriving Faster Than Anyone Predicted" is from the April 25, 2016 Technology section of The Washington Post. It was written by Larry Downes and narrated by Sam Scholl.