By Rick Merritt
EE Times

Disruptive innovation. A hard-to-quantify, almost Zen force. We know we want it, but what is it?

Our gut says it's that unexpected flash of lateral thinking when we see what everyone else has been missing. We know it can take a bucket of tears and an ocean of sweat to bring that inspiration to life.

This Web site is dedicated to the people who have experienced such insights and backed them up with the hard work needed to make something new happen. Here we celebrate 29 of those innovators-a small and unavoidably subjective sampling of the many inventive minds that drive the industry forward every working day.

Some are CEOs, CTOs or technology managers from big corporations. Others are entrepreneurs from tiny startups or researchers from corporate, academic or government labs. Some are household names; some have names you've never heard before.

They invented the Playstation, digital subscriber lines, the Blackberry, TiVo, the Prius, the USB flash drive, the Segway and Skype. Driven by our imperfect tendency to organize, we've placed their innovations in seven chapters, representing key sectors and megatrends in technology today:

• Chapter 1: Enabling Components—The devices that drive the systems we use.
• Chapter 2: The Need for Speed—Pushing systems and networks into today's Gigahertz Era.
• Chapter 3: Mobility—The wireless nets and devices we take on the road.
• Chapter 4: Digital Media—The era of digital music, movies, radio and TV.
• Chapter 5: Beyond the Box—Pioneering the software that fuels our systems.
• Chapter 6: Pathfinders—Defining what lies beyond the horizon.
• Chapter 7: The Digital Frontier—Digital technology enables new medical, automotive and industrial apps.

We've prefaced the profiles with a thought-provoking essay on the nature of disruptive innovation from the author who helped raise the concept to prominence. Clayton Christensen and his co-authors explain why they think disruptive innovation so often trips up otherwise smart companies and describe how it may bifurcate the semiconductor industry.

Exclusively for this Web site, we commissioned an excellent essay on the history of how Hollywood has manipulated copyright law to impede disruptive innovations in digital media. It was written by the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Fred von Lohmann, a passionate spokesman for the technology industry.

Also on this Web site, you will find first-person essays in which our profiled innovators, in their own words, share their experiences and opinions about innovation. In addition, we offer one-on-one interviews with of a handful of these technologists, including some audio clips.

This Web site will remain an active online destination dedicated to celebrating innovators. I invite you to keep it bookmarked as a source for future interviews from the editors of EE Times.

The Web site lit up before you is just one facet of our "Great Minds, Great Ideas" project. I invite you to seek out a copy of the site's print-edition companion-the Dec. 5 special issue of EE Times that will go out to all of our regular print subscribers. It is highly portable and requires no batteries or ac outlet. And the resolution of the pictures is magnificent, thanks to some old but truly splendid publishing technology.

It's one thing to read about innovators and quite another to meet them face-to-face. I invite you to attend a special program we will host on Jan. 5-8 at the Consumer Electronics Show, in the Sands Exhibition Hall in Las Vegas, where we will host a special exhibit area and panel discussions with a handful of these innovators. Perhaps, from an up-close and personal encounter, you will have your own flash of lateral thinking that will set you on the course of a disruptive innovation.

I hope you enjoy this Web site, the print special issue and the event we have created to celebrate innovators. I welcome your feedback at rbmerrit@cmp.com. Let us know what you think about any aspect of this special project-and tell us what disruptive innovation means to you.