Today and in the future, we continue to take where we are in our technology and digital understanding and feed it more remarkable human ingenuity. Combining the collected knowledge found in a network of collaborators can dramatically advance the solutions sought by unlocking previously intractable problems.

We have entered the innovation era as we combine in ways not possible until recently. If we take any industry, any societal problem, as we tackle climate challenges, the power of connected innovation will make a difference and give us our breakthroughs.

We are still searching for the “how and what.” We need to push ourselves by opening up to the “where and why” in a network of connecting ways. We are recognizing sharing what we know accelerates understanding for all those involved.

Recognizing ecosystems are vital, combining human, technology, and data allows us to pursue multiple possibilities, explore them faster than before, evaluate them in quicker, more imaginative ways and scale those that show promise.

We must constantly look beyond the walls we build around ourselves, we think they protect us, but actually, they trap us in a limited universe.

If we do not cultivate sharing and embrace cross-collaborations, we never gain natural agility and see “value” beyond our limited experience.

When we stop from exploring, in investing time to ‘force ourselves, we stop failing. We need to learn faster and learn the ability to correct as we go. We need both the capacity for marathons and sprints.

What we value needs ethical guardrails; if we rely on what we are “feed”, we lose the ability to balance and reflect. We need diversity to fill our lives; however painful this sometimes can be, it gives balance and a new structure.

Four connecting themes provide a far greater set of dynamics by embracing’ an ecosystem collaborative design approach.

I believe these four connecting themes can release us and allow us to explore in an ecosystem way. A wonderful friend of mine, who teaches me so much, Antonio Grasso (@antgrasso), founder and CEO of Digital Business Innovation SRL, designed an infographic visual of these four themes after my original post in August 2020.

I wanted to repost these; they can inspire you to build the ecosystem thinking and designs that support your business.

I believe these four connecting themes can release us and explore innovation in an ecosystem thinking way.

A winning design that is aspirational, giving freedom to explore

• The shifting of critical capabilities can allow a higher level of freedom to explore, creativity and thinking. Combining new connecting and networking skills, collaborative tools, and a growing understanding of challenging the existing business models and orthodoxies is increasingly ‘on the table’ to move around differently.
• Others do not just hand down the understandings of empowerment. There is this understanding of longevity and duration that are under increasing pressure. Empowerment should be actively sought, based on providing consistent delivery, and collaborating skills are a winning formula.
• To overcome this, we need to be ready to ’embrace’ diversity, uncertainty, ambiguity, and complexity to become more dominating today at our top of mind. We “don’t freeze,” we need to explore and figure it out, are far better positioned to manage increased volatility and uncertainty.
• It is less about clarifying the ‘essence of organizing’ and encouraging self-organizing, adaptive resources to ‘given’ situations or breaking opportunities and rapidly explore these in execution and new design delivery.

Providing a nimbleness, offering greater navigating skills

• We have a very different evolving set of enterprise capabilities emerging. We are working increasingly in value webs where resources are far more fluid in their makeup.
• We are more flexible (or should be) in moving our limited resources to tackle the pressing problems and then disperse into new shapes to tackle the next one.
• These new adaptive infrastructures are growing in the nimbleness and navigation skills, more agile, iterative, continually experimenting, and focused on execution and learning quickly to adapt and adjust to this new understanding.
• The emphasis is on the speed of development, continuously experimenting, exploring, validating, and checking what contributes to value creation and improved experience.

Liberating the potential, exploring new pathways

• Inside most of our organizations, there is a need to liberate the potential. Employees and Entrepreneurs have a real hunger to tackle complex problems as that is the world we live in, and they want to help solve them.
• If only the management of organizations gave more encouragement and resource to explore and connect ideas and turn them into winning solutions, it simply “cascades” and opens up greater possibilities. We need to push in far more progressive ways to manage innovation; in its design and thinking.
• We need to find imaginative ways to unleash this ‘latent’ energy by tasking them to break down these problems into ‘boxes of emerging understanding’ to recombine, explore, and validate to show a different pathway and business model design.
• We can combine and share far more today as we have the collaboration tools to do the job and the visual thinking techniques to break out of the existing mindsets.

Transforming our world, sharing and combining

• I always thought the business need was about seeking growth out, establishing new competitive positions, yet this seems not the same today; we need to get back to this positive attitude in what we do. Today business is trying to steer a safe course, to actually “hold the course.” However, the storms always need to be confronted as we recognize the inevitable need, a necessity that change is where we are all heading irrespective, it needs to be engaged, it is unavoidable. We need to embrace change and all it means as early as possible and adapt so much as we go.
• The need for transformation and disruption beckons as technology and the digital forces deliver a very different world upon us, of platforms and ecosystems.
• It is becoming easier to build and rapidly scale a business and access money and investment if the business model shows real emerging potential. Many entrepreneurs invest their time and energy into hyper challenges, ready to cut across boundaries, traditions, and accepted practices.
• Today’s winning design is full of speed, scale, and scope, connecting into sharing this with the customers and different partners by combining forces and solutions that provide connecting experience. There is a need to face change, not merely ignoring it, which requires’ embracing’ transformation.

Thinking and designing within a world of innovation ecosystems alter your perspectives and opens up more possibilities to grow and create value.

Embrace Ecosystem Design Thinking and help solve the growing complexity we are all facing in the world.