There are only a few facts that I can count on in this world: Coffee is great, butter is fantastic, Samuel L. Jackson swears a lot, snakes scare the crap out of me, and disruptors are the new inventors.

We don't invent a lot of things as a society anymore. The space program was really our last venture into invention territory – thank you NASA for my foil. Really, all we appear to be doing now is adding on to existing inventions.

Yes, we've built better computers, smartphones and WiFi (thank goodness). Now that we seem to be at the end of our ride at Invention Land, we are relying on disruptors to push the envelope. Disruptors are not only pushing the envelope, they're ripping it apart and burning it. From those ashes, they are creating new forms of existing technologies and uses that we just didn't think of before.

According to a recent survey conducted by me of me, 100% of me loves disruptive ideas –especially disruption of the incumbents.

What are the three biggest incumbent institutions that have been affected, if not nearly destroyed, by disruptors? Financial services (you). The media (me). Telecom (telephones – remember those?).

Those three industries are actually the top three industries expected to continue to see massive new sets of disruption, according to the Digital Pulse 2015 report and survey, conducted by Russell Reynolds Associates. Thanks Russell.

In fact, according to a source close to me, I have worked in each of those industries and I've personally watched disruption happen on such severe levels that you could almost feel the walls cracking as the foundation of businesses were shaken so much by disruptors that I literally watched people cash in for early retirement because they didn't know what to do or how to handle a disruptor to the telephone, the newspaper or my credit union (gasp!).

We've all heard of Uber and Lyft and the disruption they've caused, in nearly immediate fashion, to the taxi industry. For example, the L.A. Times recently reported, “Since the ride-hailing services began operating in Southern California three years ago, the number of L.A. taxi trips arranged in advance has fallen by 42%, according to city records, and the total number of trips has plummeted by nearly 30%.” That is disruption atomic-bomb style.

That is exactly what we saw happen with the internet to media outlets and with the cell phone to the ILEC telephone companies. ILEC? Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier – the more you know.

What about credit unions? Well, there's good news and there's traumatic news.

The good news is that you're a credit union and you're just beginning to feel the impact of disruptive technologies. The traumatic news is that you're on the radar and the brunt force of that disruptive feeling you're having is about to explode.

Square Cash is one small example and I use it all the time on my iPhone. The Square Cash app is a P2P system that lets me transfer money from my credit union account to another person's account, who may or may not be a credit union member, and there are no fees charged to either of us. That's just one example. The same things are happening on Snapchat with “Snapcash” and Facebook through its Messenger app. There's no official word on what these two apps have cost banks and credit unions in interchange fees. But that's old news.

As I write this, Apple announced it will be including cash payments and P2P features with the latest rollout of iOS 10 this fall inside its iMessage app. Oh, and by the way, Google Wallet announced just a few days ago that they are now fully and exclusively a P2P app.

When you add together all of these potential users of these apps, we are looking at numbers somewhere around two billion people.

Before you panic, the news isn't that bad yet. Adoption rate of these P2P apps has been slow. Want to know why? Because your credit union developed trusted mobile apps where we can transfer money, use the fun mobile deposit feature and have secure access to our money. That's what you have going for you – trust!

Trust is something disruptors don't have going for them. Did you trust the fact that you could order an Uber and climb into some stranger's car? Not the first time. Once people begin using these disruptive apps just once, that's when you're going to have a problem. A very disruptive problem.

You're not going to find the next disruptor at a conference or on a webinar. You need to talk to your IT people, your marketing team and your members to see what they see. Develop the best mobile experience you can for your members – that could be the key to what minimizes the destruction from Hurricane Disruptor. You need to gain a disruptive perspective so you're not blindsided like taxis, telephones or the media.

For me, beauty is in the eye of the disruptor.

Michael Ogden is executive editor for CU Times. He can be reached at mogden@cutimes.com.

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Beauty Is in the Eye of the Disruptor

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