In BOLD, we introduced "the Six Ds of Exponentials," or the growth cycle of exponential technologies: Digitalization, Deception, Disruption, Demonetization, Dematerialization, and Democratization.

Six Ds of Exponentials," or the growth cycle of exponential technologies: Digitalization, Deception, Disruption, Demonetization, Dematerialization, and Democratization

Six Ds of Exponentials,” or the growth cycle of exponential technologies: Digitalization, Deception, Disruption, Demonetization, Dematerialization, and Democratization

In times of dramatic change, the large and slow cannot compete with the small and nimble. But being small and nimble requires a whole lot more than just understanding the Six Ds of exponentials and their expanding scale of impact. You'll also need to understand the technologies and tools driving this change. These include exponential technologies like infinite computing, sensors and networks, 3-D printing, artificial intelligence, robotics, and synthetic biology and exponential organizational tools such as crowdfunding, crowdsourcing, incentive competitions, and the potency of a properly built community. These exponential advantages empower entrepreneurs like never before. Welcome to the age of exponentials.

For linear-thinking companies, the six Ds of exponentials are the six horsemen of the apocalypse — no question about it.

call the 6Ds: Digitized, Deceptive, Disruptive, Dematerialize, Demonetize and Democratize.

6Ds: Digitized, Deceptive, Disruptive, Dematerialize, Demonetize and Democratize. Any technology that

three of these forces — the coming of age of the DIY innovator; a new breed of technophilanthropist; the expanding creative/market power of the rising billion — are augmented by exponential technology.

To take on the bold, we need this third drive. Leveraging exponential technology to tackle big goals and using rapid iteration and fast feedback to accelerate progress toward those goals is about innovation at warp speed. But if entrepreneurs can’t upgrade their psychology to keep pace with this technology, then they have little chance of winning this race.

To take on the bold, we need this third drive. Leveraging exponential technology to tackle big goals and using rapid iteration and fast feedback to accelerate progress toward those goals is about innovation at warp speed. But if entrepreneurs can't upgrade their psychology to keep pace with this technology, then they have little chance of winning this race.

Deception. What follows digitalization is deception, a period during which exponential growth goes mostly unnoticed. This happens because the doubling of small numbers often produces results so minuscule they are often mistaken for the plodder's progress of linear growth. Imagine Kodak's first digital camera with 0.01 megapixels doubling to 0.02, 0.02 to 0.04, 0.04 to 0.08. To the casual observer, these numbers all look like zero. Yet big change is on the horizon. Once these doublings break the whole-number barrier (become 1, 2, 4, 8, etc.), they are only twenty doublings away from a millionfold improvement, and only thirty doublings away from a billionfold improvement. It is at this stage that exponential growth, initially deceptive, starts becoming visibly disruptive.

Rather than using armies of people or large physical plants, Exponential Organizations are built upon information technologies that take what was once physical in nature and dematerialize it into the digital, on-demand world.

Deception. What follows digitalization is deception, a period during which exponential growth goes mostly unnoticed. This happens because the doubling of small numbers often produces results so minuscule they are often mistaken for the plodder’s progress of linear growth. Imagine Kodak’s first digital camera with 0.01 megapixels doubling to 0.02, 0.02 to 0.04, 0.04 to 0.08. To the casual observer, these numbers all look like zero. Yet big change is on the horizon. Once these doublings break the whole-number barrier (become 1, 2, 4, 8, etc.), they are only twenty doublings away from a millionfold improvement, and only thirty doublings away from a billionfold improvement. It is at this stage that exponential growth, initially deceptive, starts becoming visibly disruptive.

When a woman in Outer Mongolia answers her smartphone, she's using a device a million times cheaper and a thousand times more powerful than a supercomputer from the 1970s.3 That's what exponential change looks like in the real world.