OCAD University professor Alexander Manu believes that the future is not something that happens to us but something we create.
In his latest book, The Disruption Continuum, Manu argues that disruption isn’t a one-off event, but an ongoing process driven by technological, social, and economic changes, especially in the age of generative AI.
A strategic innovation expert and author, Manu advises global Fortune 500 companies across industries, as diverse as consumer-packaged goods, media, logistics, advertising, communications, and manufacturing, helping them integrate disruption, develop strategic capabilities, and anticipate future trends.
A professor at OCAD University since 2007, Manu has also served on the Schulich Executive Education Centre (SEEC) faculty at the Schulich School of Business. In 2018, he became the Global Innovation Steward at Holofy, a video-powered sales engagement tool.
Between 2007 and 2019, Alexander was an Adjunct Professor at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, where he introduced Innovation, Foresight, and Business Design into the MBA curricula.
Manu has written extensively on innovation and foresight, including, Transcending Imagination: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Creativity (2024) and The Philosophy of Disruption: From Transition to Transformational Change (2022). He has delivered more than 600 keynote lectures in 27 countries and served on international design and government advisory boards.
OCAD U caught up with Professor Manu to discuss his latest book:
What inspired you to write the book and to explore disruption not as isolated events but as a continuous thread throughout human history?
Interestingly, the idea for the book emerged during a session with one of my clients. After completing a futureproofing workshop, the executive team expressed great satisfaction. They believed they had crafted a solid plan for the next decade, a clearly defined trajectory. It was in that moment I realized something critical: disruption does not wait for you to be ready. It does not pause when you’ve “futureproofed.” It is not a singular event but a multidimensional condition, continuously unfolding across society, often in ways that are invisible to organizations themselves.
While the disruptor may appear clear and immediate, disruption radiates over time, reverberating through behaviours, infrastructures, and institutions. That insight led me to investigate how technologies inspire new behaviours, which in turn give rise to new technologies, each becoming another wave of disruption. This recursive loop took me back through history, ultimately to what I believe may be the most foundational disruptive technology of all: fire.
Your book traces technological transformation from the printing press to generative AI. What patterns or lessons from history do you think are most relevant for understanding today’s technological landscape?
The most vital pattern to observe is the irreversible nature of transformative technologies. Once a society integrates a technology into its way of life, it seldom returns to previous modes of operation. We didn’t go back to eating raw meat after discovering fire. We didn’t revert to darkness after harnessing electricity.
Of particular relevance today is the distinction between incremental technologies and what I call foundational technologies, those that alter the very basis of societal function. When foundational technologies emerge, the question is no longer “How do we adapt our methods to this new tool?” but rather “What must we now become because this tool exists?” A common example is the conversation around adapting education to artificial intelligence. That framing misses the mark. Generative AI is not something to be 'fitted' into education, it compels us to fundamentally rethink what we mean by education: its formats, its methods, and even its purpose.
How is disruption intertwined with human factors of desire, behaviour, and imagination?
This is a compelling question because it ties innovation directly to philosophy. Aristotle observed that desire is the ultimate source of action. Once our basic survival is secured, what drives us forward is desire; desire for comfort, speed, understanding, entertainment, connection, warmth.
That desire becomes behaviour: the longing to arrive somewhere faster becomes the act of moving differently. And from behaviour, we shape the world, we invent tools, build vehicles, and eventually construct systems. Imagination is the mental space in which we rehearse these possibilities before manifesting them. It is where we prototype the paths toward our desires. Disruption, therefore, is born not only from external forces but from the internal mechanics of being human.
Many people may think of disruption as sudden or episodic. How do you hope your reframing of disruption as a continuum will change the way readers think about innovation and adaptation?
Reframing disruption as a continuum is critical, especially for organizations, because it teaches us that nothing is ever finished. Every adoption is not an endpoint, but the beginning of something else. We live within a perpetual unfolding of beginnings.
When disruption is seen as emergent, living, and ever transforming, we begin to understand it as a mechanism of becoming. It is not an interruption but a state of motion through which we evolve toward whatever we most desire, fear, or value. Disruptive knowledge arises precisely in this understanding: that transformation is constant, and that adaptation is not a phase, it is a posture.
Your book discusses building “disruptive knowledge” and developing innovation ecosystems. Can you give an example of how an organization or individual might apply these frameworks today?
"Disruptive knowledge" refers to the understanding of phenomena that consistently reshape the world, be it technological, cultural, political, biological, or economic. It bridges the gap between tacit knowledge (knowing through doing) and explicit knowledge (knowing through explanation).
You cannot write about Facebook as a theory unless you’ve engaged with it experientially. That space between using and theorizing, that is where disruptive knowledge is formed. It is the space in which insight is not just gathered but enacted.
Organizations that have applied this understanding early include those operating in blockchain, IoT, and cryptocurrency ecosystems. More recently, the rapid adoption of large language models like GPT has been a hallmark of organizations embracing disruptive knowledge. These are not mere tools; they are catalysts for ecosystem wide transformation.
In an era of rapid change, what qualities or mindsets do you believe leaders must cultivate to anticipate and shape transformation rather than simply react to it?
Leaders must embrace foresight, not prediction, but strategic anticipation. They must foster a culture of experimentation, cultivate adaptability, and accept that the future demands systemic redesign, not iterative maintenance.
Leadership today is not about managing continuity; it’s about enabling redesign. The role of a leader is to see what others miss, to ask better questions, and to prototype new futures within a framework that is fluid, collaborative, and continually learning.
Looking ahead, what emerging technologies or societal shifts do you see as most likely to accelerate the continuum of disruption, and how should people and organizations prepare?
Without question, the most catalytic force is the widespread implementation of generative AI across all spheres of life, work, leisure, education, governance. Its foundational nature demands a deep reconfiguration of systems.
But the greater challenge lies in how unprepared many individuals and institutions are to truly comprehend its nature. The first step is vision clarity, understanding what this disruption truly entails. From there, organizations must build cross disciplinary leadership teams capable of developing that vision and operationalizing it through prototype initiatives, pilot programs, and new value frameworks.
Preparation means more than upskilling, it means deconstructing legacy systems and creating ecosystems built for continuous learning, adaptation, and disruption maximization. Above all, we must begin by setting a new context for knowledge itself. For education, this means moving from content delivery to capability creation; from answers to questions; from static curriculum to dynamic experience.
