Dave Cushman has written an interesting starting point for locating the differentiating value your business brings to a networked world (Build on what the networks can’t touch), but while I agree with the general sentiment, I wanted to post about the theoretical problems I’m having with some of the specifics.

Dave writes:

‘Ask yourself which element of your business can NOT be disrupted as the network touches it.

Which element cannot be made more efficient, done more cheaply – done better when integrated with and disrupted by the network?’

He suggests that this element is the kernel of your business (Or Community of Purpose)

The problem is that I’m not sure there’s any part of a business that can’t be touched, disrupted or improved by the network in some way – which Dave also believes (“pretty much any process, any value chain you can think of, is awaiting disruption”)

That doesn’t mean that I don’t think there is place for distinct businesses.

I think it’s a case of modifying Dave’s approach.

There are possibly two elements I can identify which would point towards the kernel of your business:

1. The element of your business which is difficult or almost inaccessible for the network to currently disrupt.

2. The element of your business which turns the crowd/network into a Tribe or Community of Purpose with definition and leadership.

1. For instance, the cost of building a manufacturing plant is currently prohibitively expensive. It’s feasible that a network could bring together the finances required, which would remove it from Dave’s theory. But the difficulty of doing it means that the disruptive effect of the networked world has been to allow smaller manufacturers the ability to co-operate globally and to pool smaller runs of specific components into one product. If you have the resources to combine everything into a doohickey, or the pat you create requires tools which aren’t cheap and widespread, then there’s a kernel.

The same is also true online – plenty of people have ideas which will never exist because they don’t have access to developers or funding. These types of resources are essential to your business.

2. The networked world disrupts, innovates, improves on a daily basis. But there’s a big difference between crowds, Smart Mobs, and Tribes. In the comments, Dave writes that if using the network is all you have, perhaps you don’t have a business – but I don’t believe it’s about using the network at all – it’s about providing the means for the network and your business to co-create something which provides a return.

It’s the bit that turns the information within 5000 individual brains into the core of Wikipedia, or £35 donations into ownership of a football club.

I think essentially it comes down to the fact that any business is a network of people. The difference between a business and a network, is in the resources and strategy the business has, rather than seeing itself as holding a Holy Grail which will never be disrupted.

I’m not claiming for a second that you shouldn’t try for first mover advantage or use patents etc. I’m just not sure the anti-disruption field holds the answer quite yet.

I’d love to have some conversations about this, as I definitely think it’s a hugely valuable discussion – either here, or on Dave’s original post.