Gaining a Different Perspective on Innovation through Platforms, Blocks, and Stack Designs

Innovation is a complex process that requires effective connections and collaborations among individuals and teams.

Stepping back, I want to draw down on a series of perspectives I have found invaluable. A very inspirational article by Larry Schmitt on the Innovation Stack added to my thinking about innovation stacks. Then the depth of work Sangeet Paul Choudary has explored around Platforms and his Building Block Thesis is terrific.

Both of these contributions have helped me build further upon all the diverse viewpoints and strands of thoughts I have been researching for my solution framework, one of building out innovation stacks, building blocks, and the modular and component approaches for challenging the existing designs for any innovation management process.

My fun has been piecing these together to lead me to my suggested Vertical and Horizontal Framework for achieving a different innovation management design. I will go into the final proposed components in my next post. Here I offer a different perspective of innovation that leads to proposing such a change.

Innovation Ecosystem in thinking and design has been emerging for me.

The value of ecosystem thinking and design to innovate solutions cannot be overstated. Every innovative activity relies on accumulating, transforming, and interpreting knowledge among individuals, teams, and organizations. However, these knowledge actions are often implicit and subconscious. To make these actions explicit, it is essential to identify and modularize the components of the innovation stack, which represents the knowledge operations within an innovation system. (Larry Schmitt- The Innovation Stack)

A comprehensive innovation ecosystem design offers several benefits, including fostering a culture of innovation, accelerating innovation, enhancing collaboration, leveraging diverse perspectives, and driving competitive advantage. Organizations can create a more comprehensive and effective innovation ecosystem by utilizing building blocks as components of the innovation stack, guiding platform development using the innovation stack, and supporting the innovation stack with a platform.

It is crucial to identify the key components that make up the ecosystem to build an effective innovation ecosystem, including products, services, channels, partners, regulations, policies, and technology. Mapping out the relationships between these elements can reveal opportunities for collaboration and growth. Furthermore, businesses can leverage open business models, which involve openness in solution design and usage, to create and deliver innovative solutions. This approach allows for integrating solution components created in an open ecosystem and using solution complements that enhance the end user’s experience.

Innovation Stacks become essential.

The innovation stack consists of modular, shared, and persistent elements such as language, infrastructure, libraries, and APIs that facilitate building an innovation system. These components are oriented towards learning, knowledge, creativity, design, and testing—essential tasks in the innovation process. Organizations can effectively augment their innovation systems by assessing the support provided by each stack component, designing specific elements to address knowledge operation requirements, and defining human-AI collaboration. (Larry Schmitt- The Innovation Stack)

Exploring the Business Block Thesis

Sangeet Paul Choudary has explored and explained building blocks in his Building Block thesis. This provided me with my own “building block” of how to approach innovation differently, to bring it up to date and capitalize on today’s technology potential.

I have formed an essential part of what I have in mind for my suggested innovation solution on exploring ecosystems and platforms and how these are made up to offer value and impact. We are “bringing solutions as bundles of value.” To quote Sangeet Paul: “A building block approach unbundles a solution bundle into its fundamental constituents. Building blocks may be combined and also recombined to create an (ever-increasing) broader scope of end solutions, each leveraging common building blocks that are autonomous.

Building blocks allow interoperability between each of the blocks and interoperability; they enable solution designs that scale and offer diversity. We are leveraging digital technology based on a technology approach with a platform solution. We are seeing the emergence of providing radically different solutions that have increased flexibility in design and adaptiveness to gain response times to rapidly changing market conditions and building more complex solutions to meet changing demands and conditions.

By taking the tools, techniques, frameworks, and mechanisms as the building block components of the innovation stack and using the innovation stack as the guide and process flow to guide the platform development, organizations can create a more comprehensive and effective innovation ecosystem.

From my perspective, a comprehensive innovation ecosystem design can potentially provide several benefits, such as:

1. Fostering a culture of innovation: A well-designed innovation ecosystem can help create a culture that supports innovation. It can encourage and reward creativity, experimentation, and risk-taking, which are essential for driving innovation.
2. Accelerating innovation: A comprehensive innovation ecosystem design can help streamline the innovation process, reducing the time and resources needed to bring new products, services, or processes to market.
3. Enhancing collaboration: An effective innovation ecosystem design can promote collaboration between individuals and organizations, creating new ideas and solutions that may not have been possible otherwise.
4. Leveraging diverse perspectives: A comprehensive innovation ecosystem design can incorporate a variety of stakeholders, including employees, customers, suppliers, and partners, providing a diversity of perspectives that can lead to more innovative solutions.
5. Driving competitive advantage: A well-designed and executed innovation ecosystem can help companies differentiate themselves from their competitors by creating unique products, services, or processes.

In conclusion, gaining a different perspective on innovation requires a holistic approach that encompasses ecosystem thinking, the innovation stack, building blocks, open business models, and the use of metaphors. By embracing these concepts and frameworks, organizations can navigate the complexities of innovation and position themselves as leaders in their respective industries.

Achieving my final perspective of a new innovation ecosystem designed approach to managing innovation is through my proposed Vertical and Horizontal Framework, moving towards a more comprehensive Enterprise Innovation Framework seeking to achieve a different innovation management design. I will go into the components in my next post and the framework I see.

Below I provide much of my “ramblings” and insights toward this need for a different, more up-to-date holistic end-to-end innovation process based on a technology platform.

References:

• Sangeet Paul Choudary: Platforms and the Building Block Thesis Platform Revolution
• Larry Schmitt: “The Innovation Stack“

Previous Posts that built up my thesis toward a radical change to the Innovation Management Process from the perspective of an ecosystem and platform thinking and design

Why do we need to change our thinking about innovation

Innovation Software, is it Facing the Innovators Dilemma?

Where will Innovation Management Software go?

Thinking about Innovation Ecosystems?

We require a more dynamic view of Innovation understanding.

What value does an Innovation Ecosystem offer?

Constructing the innovation mandate

Are we EVER going to embrace innovation?

Building out our innovation ecosystem in design and thinking

The power of ecosystem thinking for resolving the innovation complexity of today

What makes the innovation ecosystem different?

Recognizing the Building Blocks of Innovation

Building the innovation stack

Identifying key component relationships of Innovation Stacks and Building Blocks