Why Innovation Ecosystems?

October 23, 2022Posted inBusiness Ecosystems, Innovation Ecosystems, Knowledge Ecosystems, Network & Collaborating Effects, Value Creation Dynamics, Value Designing
Reaching out for a new design built on collaborative building blocks of design

Following on from a series of posts on innovation ecosystems, especially a recent one, “Seeing innovation differently through ecosystem thinking and design” I outlined a need for a profound shift in the business landscape; well in my view, that time is rapidly approaching.

Why do we need to make a really necessary change?

Our present economic models, certainly in the West are so heavily debt-laden, from the effects of over-spending, supporting the Ukrainian war, and the Corvid crisis, and rightly supporting those in economic need and business difficulties.

One of the problems in economic distribution is that applying this in a top-down way is it can often not determine those in need from those who simply gain or are unable to deliver to those the adequate or appropriate support they require.

Our models of economic distribution are simply outdated or built on self-interest or self-promotion or simply enabling preservation for individual benefit and not for the ‘greater’ community.

The next few years are going to be very painful in further adjustments and polarization.

Our politicians continue the hackneyed phrase or idea, said or used so often that it has become boring and has no meaning, of the need for growth and prosperity.

I cannot see this way forward if we remain “locked” in the existing systems of self-interest, benefits being given to selected groups as rewards for support or simply to maintain the status quo.

Barriers to innovation, the cause and effect.

October 18, 2022Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Building Innovation Capability, Business Platforms and Ecosystems, Fresh thinking, Innovation Ecosystems, Innovation strategy, Integrated Innovation Thinking, Shifting dynamics in innovation
Seeing the barriers, the causes and effects.

I am on a personal mission to convince innovation software providers, corporations and innovators to change how they undertake innovation.

In some recent posts, I argued that we need to adopt a broader innovation ecosystem thinking and design. I stated in one recent post, “We must promote more dynamic environments and the constant desire that organizations and their people have to be fit for innovating purposes, adaptive and fluid in such highly challenging and confusing times.”

I do think we need to restate the current barriers to innovation.

These barriers do not ‘magically’ change by delivering what I believe moves us to a better system for innovation, that of an ecosystem and platform architecture. Still, barriers do need to be consciously built into any new thinking as ones “to be resolved” in any new solution design.

Recognizing the present and ongoing barriers to innovation needs solutions to be built into any future design. Let me outline many of these here, building further the case for necessary change.

Today most organizations have barriers towards creativity, ideas and innovation.

Why do we need to change our thinking about innovation?

October 9, 2022Posted inBuilding Innovation Capability1 Comment
The Innovation Ecosystem Cascading Effect

I have been arguing in recent posts about the need to change how we approach innovation. We need to think about designs around innovation ecosystems.

In a series that builds the argument so far, I have provided the essential context within this post” Please, we need a different innovation narrative” followed by “Building out our innovation ecosystem in design and thinking.”

My personal energy is drawn from all the challenges we face, looking to help find solutions.

We must promote more dynamic environments and the constant desire that organizations and their people have to be fit for innovating purposes, adaptive and fluid in such highly challenging and confusing times.

Achieving this innovation ecosystem thinking does require a profound shift in how innovation is viewed and approached in the business landscape today and in the future.

The necessary Plumbing, Pipework and Pumps for the Industrial Metaverse

September 30, 2022Posted inBusiness Ecosystems, Industrial Ecosystems, Metaverse, Platforms, Value Creation Dynamics
The stages of building out the Industrial Metaverse
The stages of building out the Industrial Metaverse taking a three-horizon approach

I had the pleasure of attending the Nvidia GTC22 event recently. Over four days, they did a good job of scrambling my brain. Take a look at some of the sessions that apply to you- amazing stuff.

I focused on the Industrial Metaverse and where it is going. It is only at the beginning of its journey, but the feast of predictions, future forecasting and bold, clear visions on this was impressive.

Jensen Huang, the NVIDIA CEO gave the keynote where he took us into that opening understanding and a closer look at the game-changing technologies that are helping us take on the world’s greatest challenges. I really had to break this nearly two-hour keynote into “bite-sized” segments to absorb all the releases, updates and the speed of development that NVIDIA are undertaking.

Rev Lebaredian, VP within the Omniverse group, gave us a clear view of how and where the Industrial Metaverse can head. NVIDIA Omniverse is the platform for future building.

The Omniverse platform is for creating and operating metaverse applications.

Building out our innovation ecosystem in design and thinking

September 26, 2022Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, Building Innovation Capability, Business Platforms and Ecosystems, gaining innovation momentum, Innovation Ecosystems, Integrated Innovation Thinking, Shifting dynamics in innovation2 Comments
Finding the new building blocks of innovation ecosystem design and thinking.

Why change our thinking and designing around innovation ecosystems?“

For me, ecosystem thinking and design offer fresh ways for accelerating mutual learning, and through this innovation, outcome potential for sharing and knowledge building.

As we build an understanding of the power of digital platforms and ecosystem thinking, we can see gains and new values and realize different opportunities denied to us in the past by a lack of clarity, depth of understanding of what was in front of us but not appreciated, as we were looking at it differently and not seeing its potential in a combined value or bundling.

Today we live in a more connected world; technology has enabled this.

We are becoming far more networked and have a growing awareness of hyper challenges that we are in part resolving. Still, we face many blurring boundaries across market positions, competitors and global trade that need combining our talent and expertise to provide a new set of solutions, delivering on promise and impact. We are in a more complex world, needing different approaches within business organizations.

We hold the promise of liberating potential in resolving wicked problems and opportunities, providing we embrace the potential to combine and share outside our organization and tap into the rich diversity of knowledge, equally keen to collaborate and cooperate to achieve a more cross-cutting innovation that provides solutions to these more complex problems.

Seeing innovation differently through ecosystem thinking and design

September 23, 2022Posted inBusiness Ecosystems, Ecosystems, Innovation Ecosystems, Knowledge Ecosystems, Platforms, Value Creation Dynamics, Value Designing1 Comment
Thinking of innovation as an innovation ecosystem in design

We need to re-think innovation and provide a new level of innovation integration and optimization.

What we see increasingly is the need to change to a different thinking, one of what “innovation ecosystems.” can provide.

In designing these innovation ecosystems, we might have the potential answer to overcoming and giving innovation that chance to be more central to the core of the business. It might offer us the ability to connect much of the rich internal knowledge with that outside one, that other organizations and individuals can provide, in diversity, or thought or contribution.

I envisage an ecosystem of working upon like-minded goals and ambitions, by collaborating for delivering a new form of innovation value. Collaborating in ecosystem thinking and design I would suggest opens up significant potential and combinations, that provide added value and significant opportunity for improvement on the existing offerings.

Approaching innovation on a common, shared technology platform can significantly enhance the discovery, experimentation, exploring and exploiting diverse skills and expertise through to commercialization.

Please, we need a different Innovation narrative

September 16, 2022Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Building Innovation Capability, Business Platforms and Ecosystems, Innovation Ecosystems1 Comment
(Visual adapted from AFSC explaining a narrative, in this case, social justice)

I have been struggling for quite some time with innovation’s increasing difficulties in influencing growth and achieving real impact.

I see many comments on the failure of innovation, in its inability to be at the core of an organization’s ambitions for growing and changing. Actually it is a long list of issues and concerns that we so often paper over and don’t fully address. There is a time for making a real change and I feel that could be now by shifting our thinking towards innovation ecosystems.

Let’s reflect first on the constraints or barriers that innovation faces, much self-imposed.

Innovation “fights” to attract resources, to gain management attention or to appreciate fully the difficulties and uncertainties in the time it takes, in its potential risks and its need often for a more ambitious and bold commitment of support and belief.

Our innovation processes stay locked in islands of knowledge, stubbornly not flowing across organizations, informing others and giving the right levels of insights, support, or collaboration needed. Innovation software management continues to be sold piecemeal, so often just bolted onto the other selected parts already in place, not being optimized.

Governance within Ecosystems

September 12, 2022Posted inBusiness Ecosystems, Ecosystems, Energy Networks, Sustainability, Value Creation Dynamics
Governance within Ecosystem Design

Managing Governance within Ecosystem Designs

Governance needs to constantly “account” for change. Here is a handy reference or reflection of its capacity to deliver:

You need a living environment, one that evolves constantly

+ Here, you must establish a relational, institutional and coordination set of strategic and operational approaches. The “living” document needs to reflect on the constant reshaping of the ecosystem as it evolves and recognize that this is a constantly evolving design.

+ Governance needs to articulate the influencing and coordinating mechanisms, their different levels, and the protocols and procedures to resolve any disputes or pathway directions all would need to follow and adhere to.

+ It needs to determine the boundary conditions and if and when these change, which they are most likely to, there is a mechanism in place to recognize this and determine any new scope, direction or design to be accepted going forward.

+ A governance document must have built into it sufficient commonality and be transparent in its spirit of amiability to coordination and decision-making.

+ It needs to determine the critical driving forces but equally reflect on the different catalyzing forces in tensions and design that individual members will attempt to impose, so there needs a resolution method to be able to go back and refer to.

Innovation Passion led me here

September 6, 2022Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Building Innovation Capability, Business Platforms and Ecosystems, Fresh thinking, Innovation Ecosystems, Integrated Innovation Thinking2 Comments
Having an innovative passion

So many multiple strands constantly need to be pulled together to build a complete innovation picture.

We need to build theories, explore multiple connections, and build continuously on the patterns, the signals, and the interactions by extracting from all the different ‘cells’ of knowledge we all possess, which makes the application of innovation often highly unique to each of us.

Innovation ‘speaks to us all in different ways and has multiple meanings.

Then, when we grasp what we understand, we have to translate these thoughts into practical, workable solutions. By sharing, you learn and continue to build on this knowledge. You actually blend your own creation and learn from others, and that combination effect curates even greater knowledge and application.

To build a comprehensive view of any innovation built in a digital world needs is bringing together multiple strands of understanding, and that is tough, demanding and time-consuming.

Innovation needs to speak to us.

Gaining energy and idea generation

August 29, 2022Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, Building Innovation Capability, Fresh thinking, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Sustainability

Gaining energy and idea generation

I have been asking myself how a combined effect of innovation and ecosystem design thinking will support the energy transition we are undertaking to give it additional traction and generation.

Let me share my thoughts and proposition here.

The vital “infusion” of innovation in thinking, approaching and building this into the front end of any energy transition provides a greater discovery structure and process that can greatly facilitate the changes, with more informed knowledge, insights and validation of a path to travel.

Finding fresh ideas and momentum