Are you a disruptor?

Change before you have to.
   - Jack Welch

I caught this link on a Twitter feed on the #eventprofs hashtag and identified with it immediately. Sometimes I get frustrated trying to implement and manage change at work and revert back to the easy path of "follow the rules, do what your boss says, and don't make waves." But my nature is to push the envelope. I'm no Richard Branson or Steve Jobs, but in my own little world, I'm known for making people think beyond what they are comfortable doing. I want to find efficiencies and foster creativity.

In events, this means making more meaningful engagements happen in more surprising ways. Like I mentioned in a previous post, it's important to create memorable moments throughout your engagement.
People are at your event for the session content and the networking, so taking opportunities to surprise and delight them in unexpected ways is what disrupts their view of "yet another business conference."

I'm a huge advocate of disruption for the sake of breaking status quo (not disruption without purpose). I was an early adopter of eTouches registration tools, for examples, because I believed they were truly thinking from an event marketer's perspective, with a software hat on, rather than thinking from a software perspective with an event marketer's hat on. They get events, they get social, and they get the need to customize things for each customer. They are disruptors like I am.

Innovation is the buzzword of the moment, and it's a good one. Disruption is the activity we must do to pave the way for innovation.