I recently wrote that I wanted to start to “identify and write about possible disruptive technologies”. The first potential disruptive technology that I’m going to cover is within the website development market.

I’ve been interested in website development for years. I’ve taught myself the very basics of Frontpage and Dreamweaver, I’ve fooled around with HTML, and I’ve screwed up a lot of CSS code. I only ever want a presentable way to show my content. I generally just get by, and always end up frustrated with the tools.

The problem I’ve had with traditional website development tools that attempt to offer an ‘easy’ solution is that they offer an easy solution for knowledgeable individuals. The steps that occur between: (1) a person thinking “I wish I had a place online for my content”; and, (2) a presentable website that holds and easily updates the content, are too difficult (or expensive) for the average individual to complete.

Or at least they had been.

There has been an explosion in user generated content recently – blogs have made it simple and cost effective for individuals to share content online. Blogs have solved the problem for the individual.

The problem still exists, however, for the small businesses of the world. Small business owners generally don’t have the time to learn how to create a website, or the resources to afford a website developer. There are lots of small businesses who would love a web presence but can’t justify it.

In my opinion there exists a (growing) market for a website development solution for small businesses. The solution has the making of a disruptive technology: it would offer fewer features, fewer capabilities, and less choice. But it would be easy and cheap.

Do products like this exist? I received an email about a month ago from Chad Sakonchick who was contacting me from a new company called Posima. He contacted me because of my blog and I responded because I was intrigued by two of his claims: that he outsourced the entire development; and, that his app made it easy for small business to get online.

After checking out the site, and watching the tutorials I have to say that I’m impressed. I’ve played around with the demo and not only is the service easy to use, it also produces attractive websites. Posima definitely simplifies the steps between thinking about getting a web presence for your small business and actually obtaining one.

Posima offers a website development application that has substantially less features, and is easier to use, than Frontpage or Dreamweaver. And that’s great. At $35/month it may be too expensive for some small businesses; however, it is substantially cheaper than hiring a web developer. That’s great too.

Posima may be a low-end disruptive technology. It’s easy to foresee how an application like this could get traction and then (with positive cash flows, an installed user base, and advances in technology) scale up, over time, to capture more and more users from Frontpage/Dreamweaver.

A post on Bubblegeneration, titled “The Problems With Web 2.0, pt 1: Geeks vs Droids”, talked about the need of web 2.0 companies to reach out to non-geeks in order to really grow. Posima is a web 2.0 company reaching out to non-geeks and the application may help get many more small businesses online.

Posima’s tag-line is “smart web publishing system”. I want Chad to be brave enough to fully embrace Posima’s disruptive potential and re-tag the application as the “dumb web publishing system”. Let the non-geeks know that it is so dumb, so lacking in features, so little choice… that they’ll be able to use it.

Looking through resumes today I was surprised to see that almost every one contained the phrase “analytical thinker” under the “Personal Skills” heading.

Now if you really were an analytical thinker, applying to a marketing-centric job, would you use the resume term du jeur? I don’t think so. I would hope that if you were an analytical thinker you’d think through the situation and come up with an original way to market yourself.

What’s going on here? My bet is that sources for resume advice and templates over utilize current business lingo. This wouldn’t be a problem except that the half-life of business lingo is about 3 seconds. The phrases in the source are out of date by the time it’s printed. By the time the phrase is included in the resume, every resume is going to have the same term.

Now are you going to get hired by ensuring you’re the same as everyone else? Doubtful. Would you get hired if you stood out and were original? Not necessarily. But you’d definitely have a better chance at capturing the recruiters eye. And that’s a big step towards getting an interview.

What does this mean? Avoid resume books like the plague. Be original, put in some original thought, and stand out.

There are two books that have changed my thinking on business – they are the Innovator’s Dilemma and the Innovator’s Solution (I mentioned them in this post and I can’t recommend them enough).

The books introduce the (on first thought counterintuitive) idea of disruptive technology . A disruptive technology is a technology that offers less performance than current products but is able to get a foothold in a niche segment: by exceeding the requirements of the segment at a lower cost; by fullfilling the needs of an emerging market segment; … and then expanding upwards, eventually surpassing the market leader. In this post I won’t get into the theory (the wikipedia article is a good start and the books are excellent).

This post is to introduce you to the concept of disruptive technologies. Why? Because I’m going to be thinking and frequently writing about them. I want to start exploring how to best market and launch disruptive technologies (if you have any good recommended reading on this I’d love to know) and I’m going to identify and write about possible disruptive technologies as I come across them. The notion of disruptionn should be on the mind of any entrepreneur looking to start a business. If you come across any technologies or innovations that you think may be disruptive, send me an email and we can start the conversation.

It’s a fun song from a fun band. If you haven’t heard it, give it a listen. They have a definite theme throughout their album and their videos.

(Another good track by Louis XIV is A Letter To Dominique, check that out as well. Not top 10 of ’05, but worth a listen).

I came across a great post from Greg Chambers who writes on, as far as I can tell (?), payment processing. The post is titled The First Rule of Referrals and I think Greg is bang on when he says “The First Rule of Referrals is (stand back): “Be Referable”. ”

It’s simple (but he’s also right when he says it’s not easy).

To be referable you have to be many things. The first step in becoming referable is to make it easy to refer you. Is it easy to refer you, your company, your product, or your service? If not, don’t expect to get many referals.