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

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

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

According to a recent survey conducted by me of me, 100% of meloves disruptive ideas –especially disruption of theincumbents.

What are the three biggest incumbent institutions that have beenaffected, if not nearly destroyed, by disruptors? Financialservices (you). The media (me). Telecom (telephones – rememberthose?).

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

In fact, according to a source close to me, I have worked ineach of those industries and I've personally watched disruptionhappen on such severe levels that you could almost feel the wallscracking as the foundation of businesses were shaken so much bydisruptors that I literally watched people cash in for earlyretirement because they didn't know what to do or how to handle adisruptor to the telephone, the newspaper or my credit union(gasp!).

We've all heard of Uber and Lyft and the disruption they'vecaused, in nearly immediate fashion, to the taxi industry. Forexample, the L.A. Times recently reported, “Since theride-hailing services began operating in Southern California threeyears ago, the number of L.A. taxi trips arranged in advance hasfallen by 42%, according to city records, and the total number oftrips has plummeted by nearly 30%.” That is disruption atomic-bombstyle.

That is exactly what we saw happen with the internet to mediaoutlets 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'straumatic news.

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

Square Cash is one small example and I use it all the time on myiPhone. The Square Cash app is a P2P system that lets me transfermoney from my credit union account to another person's account, whomay or may not be a credit union member, and there are no feescharged to either of us. That's just one example. The same thingsare happening on Snapchat with “Snapcash” and Facebook through itsMessenger app. There's no official word on what these two apps havecost banks and credit unions in interchange fees. But that's oldnews.

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

When you add together all of these potential users of theseapps, we are looking at numbers somewhere around two billionpeople.

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

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

You're not going to find the next disruptor at a conference oron a webinar. You need to talk to your IT people, your marketingteam and your members to see what they see. Develop the best mobileexperience you can for your members – that could be the key to whatminimizes the destruction from Hurricane Disruptor. You need togain 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 bereached at [email protected].