Advancing innovation | Innovating in the Age of Ecosystems

Evolutionary Ecosystem Thinking should be adopted by Business

Evolutionary thinking makes Innovation different

When we are conceptualizing organization structures and relationships in Ecosystem thinking and design we often begin by attempting to relate this to Natural Ecosystems. We often miss the connections, perhaps this might help

Traditional business frameworks often get caught in mechanistic metaphors but natural ecosystem perspectives need a fundamentally different mindset. Why?

+Recognizing no business exists in isolation but in growing complex webs of relationships and dependencies

+ We need greater adaptation over rigid planning, we need to think continuous evolution and response change

+ Today we need to recognize we gain increasing value and insights from emergent outcomes, where the dynamic interactions within the system are more impactful that top-down directives

+ We are recognizing system dynamics have cascading effects, often indirect consequences and diversity of networks need to be considered to build resilient systems

So we need to often re-frame through natural ecosystem lens.

Lets call this evolutionary ecosystem thinking

The Challenging Conditions for today’s Innovation Practice

Is the horizon the past or the future in innovation dynamism?

Innovation has entered its death spiral as many have known it.

I mean it, innovation is starved, bleeding from a lack of resources, finances and top leadership resolve. It is fighting nothing more than rearguard defense.

Forget linear processes, forget one company inventions, forget the reliance of all the internal parts of the organization to support you, especially if you are an outlier, separated from the core of the business, sitting in some remote part of the world searching for inspiration, you are operating in a time capsule of old innovation practices.

Defining Innovation Ecosystems and working on the differences

Recognizing the differences in Innovation Ecosystem Design

Recently I have been reading or listening too different understandings of innovation ecosystems. Some fuse and some confuse.

All have some merit but are not defining enough for me, so here is my take.

So to kick things off lets offer a clear definition of what an innovation ecosystem is and why it is important in today’s business environment?

Defining Innovation Ecosystems:

Definition: An innovation ecosystem is a dynamic, interconnected network of diverse actors and resources that collaborate to drive innovation and create value.

Feeling trapped,break out of the box with innovation ecosystems

We continue to fail to unlock the full potential of innovation. I continue to receive reports on the latest surveys on the management of open innovation and its progress.

So little is said or discussed on changing the innovation system, it seems organizations are (really) comfortable with incremental or experimental innovation as the extent of their ambition. We are trapped in a ever decreasing cycle.

I recall one report mentioning only 7% of innovation is deemed radical or significantly changing the way business undertakes innovation.

The business model, built on the premise the knowledge needs to flow into “us” and not mutually sharing the final outcomes, going into the market. Why?

In my view, Innovation Ecosystems Outperforms Traditional Internal Innovation Structures? Why don’t we change?

Dynamic Ecosystems: The Adaptive Core of Business

The Story of Dynamic Ecosystems- the adaptive core

I am offering a different perspective here, one that explores dynamic ecosystems as a transformative organizational model. Sit back and listen.

I asked Google Notebook LM to look at one of my articles: “A fresh perspective of Dynamic Ecosystems”.

Expanding on the idea of Dynamic Ecosystems as the decision-making and adaptability core of business ecosystems involves positioning them as both the “intelligence layer” and the “adaptive engine” that powers business agility, resilience, and growth. This approach redefines their role from a passive network to a responsive, intelligence-driven hub that continuously senses, learns, and guides the ecosystem.

Let them tell the Dynamic Ecosystem story

Recognizing Dynamics Ecosystems are the core to Innovation change

Recognizing Dynamic Ecosystems are at the core of Innovation Business Ecosystems

The strategic shift to dynamic ecosystems as a decision-making core for innovation and business ecosystems reflects a paradigm shift towards intelligent, real-time responsiveness.

This approach emphasizes not only operational flexibility but also strategic agility, enabling businesses to anticipate and lead rather than merely respond to change.

So what is special or radical in making Dynamic Ecosystems central?

We live in a world that is highly dynamic, it shifts and alters constantly. We have pursued Innovation in linear ways and these always lag. Technology has provided us to escape from the past and respond on a constant ‘real-time’ basis.

Lets change the old record and sound on innovation

The old record and sound of Innovation certainly needs changing.

Recently I have been reading about how innovation management needs to get back to basics or how it needs to be given a fresh lick of paint in professional certification, revised and updated university training programs or short courses.

For twenty years, since I have been working in the innovation space, we have constantly complained about so many different aspects of innovation failure and offered solutions to why innovation management still seemingly fails to deliver on its promise to build new growth inside our organizations. Offering innovation advice is a big industry to consult and academically, to teach in.

We keep innovation management locked into a 20th-century paradigm and I believe we must break the “chains” and make a significant shift in our innovation thinking, into innovation and business ecosystems

2024 Under Innovation and Business Ecosystem Review

My review of 2024 from a posting perspective has been a really positive one.

Taking my two primary posting sites of paul4innovating.com and ecosystems4innovating.com I wrote just over 100 posts, which always comes as a surprise in what it entails in time invested.

The split between sites was fairly even as I continue to increase my focus on building the building case for Ecosystems, in thinking and design.

In this reflective post I took a look back on why I moved from an “absolute” focus on innovations into innovation and business ecosystems.

Dynamic Ecosystems become the Core of our innovating activity.

Dynamics- The core of Business Ecosystems

Recognizing the value and potential to the Integrated Ecosystem Design

The concept of having an integrated business ecosystem is central to the future growth and value businesses can provide. Yet, these have to be seen as highly collaborative, where mutual co-creation through networks of partners join forces to overcome more complex and challenging problems we seem to be facing today.

The single organization is unlikely to bring the depth of knowledge, diversity and access in resource and market realization. We need to learn to work in collaborative Ecosystems.

Approaching innovation through the lens of innovation ecosystems

Approaching innovation through the lens of innovation ecosystems

Approaching innovation through the lens of innovation ecosystems is a strategic and holistic way of fostering creativity, collaboration, and value creation within a complex network of interdependent players.

This perspective shifts the focus from isolated efforts to a more interconnected and dynamic approach where multiple stakeholders—such as businesses, governments, academic institutions, entrepreneurs, and consumers—work together to drive innovation.

I have spent a far amount in different posts on the importance of Innovation Ecosystems and this post is simply a prompter of its value points