Every once in a while you see something which is such a fresh solution to a problem you just say ahhhh. Check out this skytrain/bus idea about how to float about the traffic in China and create efficient transport.
It got me thinking as to what makes for a disruptive thought:
A solution which transforms a constraint into a benefit. In the sky-train/bus example, the roadway becomes the rail-bed for the elevated sky-train.
Disruptive thinking often creates a radically new relationship between resources. So when you think about the folks who are growing algae from human waste to turn it into bio diesel it is a new relationship among inputs and outputs.
Disruptive thinking often radically changes the scale of an innovation. For example, when Christo the artist decided to wrap entire buildings or create valley curtain, he was thinking of art on a grand scale -- and its very scale changed the nature of the innovation. See the photo above.
Disruptive thinking sometimes comes simply from radically lower cost at higher volume. Narayana Hrudayalaya hospital in Bangalore is the largest heart surgery hospital in the world -- doing over 6,000 operations a year, with half on children, at a small fraction of the cost of any other location the world. Check out the BBC report on this spectacular organization.
Disruptive thinking sometimes unearths a desire or a market that no-one thought was there. Who knew people that people would be so interested in talking with each other in a social network. Facebook's 500,000,000 members were unforeseen by anyone I know and only by the few who believed its potential power.
Is there a disruptive way to look at a big issue or opportunity you face?