The Concept for a Dynamic Ecosystem as the Core to the Interconnected Business Ecosystem framework has been a slower realization than I had initially recognized.
In some ways this is the most important post, to date, on the extending out of the Interconnected Business Ecosystem framework. I wrote a post explaining out the shifts that have been taking place in this evolutionary process but I fell into the trap of keeping this as a linear sequence process and it simply is not.
It is the dynamics within the system that brings Dynamic Ecosystems into the core, representing its “nerve center” in an environment that is constantly pulsating, ever-changing, that feeds and reacts to the surrounding Ecosystem layers of Innovation, Entrepreneurial/Start-up, Business and Enterprise Ecosystems.
Lets build this explanation further on why Dynamic Ecosystems are so important and central to this Ecosystem approach.
The Interconnected Business Ecosystem driving impact and increased value.
I am working to validate and expand on the value proposition of the Interconnected Business Ecosystem Framework and have tried to create, hopefully, a compelling pitch that will bring others on board to advance this initiative. I have published this pitch on both of my primary sites, discussing innovation, business, and ecosystems, as they both provide a combination effect for understanding this framework.
I initially called this “the hierarchy of business ecosystem needs,” which built out an interconnected framework of business ecosystems that give organizations a real alternative to how they operate today and in the future.
I provided a comprehensive series of outline papers as the introduction phase earlier this year, which provided the concepts forming a cohesive outline structure of how organizations should think through the future. Also, I provided an earlier view on my paul4innovating.com posting site of “pitching business ecosystems opens up the possibility of real change.”
We need to really open our thinking towards collaborative ecosystems. This is one of openly collaborating and co-creating in different Ecosystem structures and designs to provide a greater diversity of opinions, knowledge, and resources.
This “pooling or network effect” forms around more complex challenges to tackle, thus giving a more sustaining and hopefully greater value in solutions to the needs of their customers, markets, or areas of need.
I have recognized this needed rebranding- hierarchy has some negative connotations.
I have now entitled this The Interconnected Business Ecosystem Framework as it reflects the essence of what I believe this framework provides
Being explicit about ecosystems in the context of organizational strategies provides several distinct advantages compared to traditional approaches. We increasingly need to consider ecosystems in our thinking and design to support the growth and sustainability that collaborations can contribute to and provide different options and pathways to value creation.
I have begun to outline the initial case for a new framework of ecosystem hierarchy within cooperation needed in business environments as they offer the potential for the transformative power of a collaborative and collective set of ecosystems coming together to offer new impact, value and growth, needed in today’s current business environment.
This Ecosystem hierarchy has a clear message of being interconnected as each layer contributes to the whole, and I trust it provides an introductory but comprehensive understanding of the values of synergies, interdependencies and the exponential value created when these layers are interconnected (read).
The result of each Ecosystem layer, even as a standalone layer, can drive innovation, resilience and prosperity within individual organizations. Yet the real potential when each layer is strategically integrated brings a more interconnected vision and value, building the impact and effect of Ecosystem design for collaboration and co-creation.
As I begin my outline of the Hierarchy of Business Ecosystem needs, I believe it is essential to place this appropriately into the context of why.
Business Ecosystems have emerged as powerful catalysts for driving transformative change and fostering collaborative solutions in today’s complex and interconnected business landscape. As organizations open up their thinking and embrace ecosystem approaches, they experience a profound shift in perspective, recognizing the value of diverse partnerships and the need for new management models. Ecosystems provide innovation activities to multiply.
In this opening post to support this Hierarchy proposal, the critical point is today, ecosystems and their role are all about delivering increased value, building synergies, and addressing complex challenges while increasing the need for collaborative solutions rather than stand-alone ones offered by one organization.
By fostering collaboration, knowledge exchange, and co-creation, ecosystems offer a pathway to sustained growth and impact, unlocking untapped potential through co-creation and cooperation that bring more significant impact and return.
Innovation thinking in Ecosystem and Gen AI design
I believe there is a real need to construct a different innovation process. We are rapidly seeing the past of innovating simply in terms of operating on our own.
We must question partnerships we have seen work in the past and ask if they are suitable for the future.
Innovation is undergoing a radical change, in opening up to technology, collaborative thinking and the value of generative AI thinking.
For me, ecosystem innovation and generative AI have arrived at that pivotal point to significantly influence future innovation design. It is where we need to question workflows and processes, as openness has become increasingly central to our thinking and development-building process.
Innovation needs reinventing. There are new ways to capture, extract and deliver value. Adopting ecosystem thinking combined with Generative AI will augment, automate and rapidly scale innovation.
I have been exploring this to support those recognizing change is happening to support this innovation transformation. This follows from several posts in building this into a new approach and thinking over innovation designs.
There needs to be a fundamental shift in how we manage innovation, which needs the power of ecosystem thinking and design. Not only in thinking and design but in how we structure its architecture, one based on platforms, open apps, and a marketplace where like-minded people and organizations go and participate in building new impactful innovation solutions together. This needs to be in open, highly collaborative ecosystems.
We need a better conceptual framework to build, one based on knowledge-based intelligence and well-grounded, driven by dynamic and constant interactions, events, and processes, so all involved can be engaged in building solutions that have fresh impact and value within the market space identified.
My mind map of the over-arching aims of a new innovation narrative is shown below.
Innovation & Ecosystems need to be our new thinking of design and delivery
An ecosystem approach on a common, shared technology platform that can significantly enhance the discovery, experimentation, exchange, exploring, and exploiting all the diverse skills and expertise from idea to commercialization and life cycle development and maturity.
The increased pace of change requires the ability to deploy, activate and utilize resources and assets to extract the potential through the diversity of the network formed within the ecosystem and the relationships engaged in the mutual pursuit
The end result needs to show actual robustness, genuinely dynamic and holistic in its dimensions and offerings, proving among its metrics faster learning rates, leveraging all that a technology-enabled platform offers, actual collaborations and shared engagements, supporting knowledge, data, insights, and people.
Open Collaboration needs to be top of mind
Innovation needs to rely increasingly on interconnected organizations organized around a central focal point of value and impact. An ecosystem design so organizations can act differently on strategies, business models, leadership, and customer engagement to build new value and worth.
We all need to recognize that Innovation and Ecosystems go together they make the potential for more sustainable solutions, they are the new combination that enables your thinking and design of new concepts and solutions to be “worked upon” in a more open, collaborative way where a richer diversity of thinking “comes into play” and the end result has that potential to be so much better than the sum of all the parts, it magnifies the sum!
I finished my last post, “Are we EVER going to embrace innovation?” With the argument, we need to change the innovation narrative and significantly update the innovation approach and processes to meet today’s and tomorrow’s business challenges.
I am working through what I think this should become in design and application, involving providing the key innovation building blocks as components of the innovation stack, using the innovation stack to guide platform development and the platform to support this innovation stack.
It is the “fit” of this framework that needs more of my time as we need a new powerful innovation engine that leverages the strengths of each but to ensure innovation flows across organizations transparently and openly so collaborations can utilize all that we have in proven innovation thinking to take advantage of and build this out in new ways of thinking and design.
To look forward, I would argue we always need to look back and account for the progress made in managing innovation over the years. The need today is not to dispense with this but to link it fully up.
So this post reviews many great contributors to advancing innovation over the years.
I will not apologize here; this will partly be a “rant” and then begin to suggest a way forward on embracing innovation fully.
I was thinking of having the headline “Innovation as our eternal doom or shame” or “innovation groundhog day”. Let me begin in why.
I really am fed up with constantly seeing claims that “innovation is core to our business” and that we are “constantly seeking fresh growth” Both of these are simply bullshit statements from the vast majority of our businesses.
Is managing innovation too complex or fragmented? Do organizations have a clear understanding of their innovation activities?
How many people are full-time employed in the innovation team, and how many in driving strategic growth? Ten, twenty, perhaps fifty out of thousands in medium to large companies.
In the bigger scheme of things, thousands within large organizations are working on innovation. These are from different functions such as R&D, Engineering disciplines, Technologists, Designers, Application and Digital. Do they work on standard innovation platforms or individually, left over from a legacy position or have they individually found a given application more suited to their specific needs?
This is the fourth and final post discussing cross-sector innovation ecosystem collaborations. It is primarily dealing with the benefits of collaboration and bringing up to a ‘given point’ a compelling value proposition for potential collaborators in understanding the basic building blocks to consider, for achieving the engagement outcomes required.
Within the series of four posts, I have been emphasising that cross-sector collaborations are becoming essential to our future in tackling highly complex challenging issues that need collaborative resolution, the necessary parts need connecting.
Yet to get to these cross-sector collaborations you do need to take a very considered holistic view of what is needed in any collaboration, let alone ane cutting across sectors to generate a successful outcome. All the elements of skills, processes, tools, capabilities and behaviours are important in supporting an effective collaboration across sectors that might need to be involved.
In a series exploring cross-sector innovation ecosystem collaborations, this is the third post discussing different aspects and the approach to this that needs to be taken as my suggested starting point.
All the elements of skills, processes, tools, capabilities and behaviours are important in supporting an effective collaboration across sectors that might need to be involved.
Clarifying the design and common points is essential
