ROBOTS AGAINST THE MACHINE?

“What chance do we have of ‘raging against the machine’ if we are trained to act like robots?”

In recent years we talked a lot about what makes innovations disruptive. This year we look at the other side of the coin: Managing for innovation, disruption and change from within.

How can organisations respond and adapt to disruption, or proactively innovate?

Many employees feel they don’t have the agency to bring about meaningful change, thus enacting whatever the ‘system’ (the machine) requires. In turn, the role of many processes and systems in organisations is to stabilise and perpetuate the status quo, regardless of how stupid such practices might be.

As a result, disruption poses an existential threat to many organisations because they have become unable to respond. Similarly, and despite investments in innovation programs, many organisations struggle to innovate or bring about transformative change.

But why is this? What can we do about it? And who will lead the way?

Our expert speakers engaged with these questions from different angles (full program here):

Our keynote speaker Pete Williams explored the “Politics of Innovation“, to break down the “Great Wall of Resistance” against which those who want to affect change often bang their heads.
Janett Egber engaged with the reality of intrapreneurs – people with an entrepreneurial mindset that have the drive (but not always the mandate) to affect change and innovation in organisations.
Anthony Ferrier claimed that “Innovation is dead” and asked “what can innovation leaders do?”
Sophie Goodman showed how business enthnography can help organisations ‘see’ and engage with disruptions as they emerge.
Tim Mahlberg lend a voice to the “professional super heroes“, those who break with the machine on their own account, working to innovate alongside their day job.
Simon Terry finally asked, “if your organisation was a country, would you want to live there?”

With two Q&A panels, parallel workshops after lunch, and an interactive futures session on ‘digital humans’ in the afternoon, DISRUPT.SYDNEY turned out to be another engaging highlight.

Relive the event by watching the full video coverage of all keynotes and short talks:

DISRUPT.SYDNEY 2018 was brought to you by the Digital Disruption Research Group (DDRG) and Sydney Business Insights (SBI).

If you are interested to relive the experience of the past years, visit the previous event websites, which host videos of all the talks, keynotes and plenary sessions: