Being an industry disruptor is not as sexy as it sounds

by Angela K. Durden
Technology inventor protecting creator's copyrights. Business writer, novelist, songwriter, and Citizen Journalist.

[This article was first released on Durden's blog on 8/14/17 at the link included at the end of this excerpt which is being published at ROTW on this Day of Labor celebrations since Durden works very, very hard.]

Being an industry disruptor is not as sexy as it sounds even if headlines everywhere infer otherwise. Forbes, The Guardian, Equities.com, and others talk about the disruption of industries from two points of view.

From the disrupted: “Oh, s**t! We’re f***ed! What do we do?” 

From the disruptor: “Here we come. Watch out, World. Early investors who managed to hang on are so gonna wanna kiss our feet.” 

In all these instances, disrupted and disruptor are sexy because of having big bucks and making even bigger promises, teams of under-30-somethings roller blading from one fancy office to another as they read their quarterly stock option reports, and planned IPOs or looming layoffs making them beg for government bailout. 

(Note the cover to the left: I’m surprised the art director didn’t throw on a cowboy hat and snake skin cowboy boots and have him twirl a lasso the graphic designer would have made out of greenbacks.)

But I’d like to tell you about being an industry disruptor from another POV that so rarely gets covered and is not so sexy:

When seeking funding for my new technology company, I was told on more than one occasion by people who know what it means, “You are an industry disruptor, Angela.” The first time I was surprised as I didn’t think of myself as that. I was simply trying to efficiently get around or remove roadblocks to my participation in the global business called the Music Industry.

Rich Karlgaard "celebrating innovation and growth"

To help get eyes on my solution, and thinking he might like to celebrate this innovation, I several times wrote personal letters about this journey, sent in real envelopes, to Rich Karlgaard of Forbes. I got absolutely no response whatsoever from the guy who says “I celebrate innovation and growth.” I didn’t even get the typical polite letter from an underling acknowledging receipt of my letters. Not one impersonal reply that hey, Rich is a busy, busy man. 

Steve Forbes

I wrote Steve Forbes years ago asking him to blurb my book on resumés and he had his people reply with a quote from him that he couldn’t do it because I was pretty much a nobody. The letter even seemed as if it was signed by Mr. Forbes himself. See how it works, Rich? Steve had manners.

What I need is a sexy little jet.

I stopped writing Karlgaard when it became clear his idea of a sexy disruptor celebrating innovation and growth did not include companies protecting the rights and data of content creators. Now, if I had a sexy little jet that goes fast and turns loopdeloops in such a manner that his whiskey-laced latté would not spill, then yeah, he’d talk to me. But

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