Why is design thinking regarded as so crucial to the future of innovation in a world of accelerating interplays between humans, technology and generative AI? How will a more open world of ecosystem partnerships gain from these interplays? Will radically different innovative interplays happen?
By embracing design thinking principles that have a growing interplay with Technology and AI generative thinking, there is the future promise of innovative solutions that address real-world complex problems. An interplay between humans, technology, and generative AI holds real future promise for offering outstanding contributions in collaborations, originality and different insights.
What will be the changes or potential to leverage these three of Design Thinking, Technology and AI Generative Thinking for solving innovation challenges in the future?
The significant value and success of the Integrated Framework for Innovation Ecosystems needs to be constantly tracked and measured.
Measuring the Multifaceted Impact is essential and radically different from how we usually approach measuring and collecting metrics.
As I previously mentioned in a recent post, “The Dynamics of Being Connected for Innovation Ecosystems.”this draws out the multifaceted approach. In the four key components, firstly,value creation needs to extend beyond (just) financial metrics; it should include social and environmental impacts in the future. Secondly, the value of knowledge transfer is all about accelerated innovation learning and seeking diverse experiences and expertise to optimize this from the network exchanges and discovery involved. Thirdly, Co-creation should constantly be looking for novelty or originality in impact, searching to continually improve customer experience and satisfaction by adding customer benefits and ways and means to improve market positioning. Fourthly, looking to assess competitive positions across the ecosystem from the partnership gives a diversity of viewpoints of opportunity to alternative market access to give a broader impact or range of options for competitive strategies.
In any connected innovation ecosystem, l see four main components that must be explored, connected and built out. These are connecting value creation, knowledge transfer, co-creation and competitive positioning. Recognizing these as interconnected builds on the core of what we already have; we make our innovation activities more dynamic and integrated, looking to provide further impact.
I have been building a framework for Business Innovation Ecosystems under “Integrated Framework for Innovation Ecosystems” and have outlined the connected story and explored the four components in my last post in their descriptive meaning in some detail.
In this post, I have taken each component, breaking down their contributions in the interconnectedness they provide and how they anchor the navigating of the dynamic nature of innovation and then provide the multifaceted impacts beyond just measuring metrics that significantly “lift” collaborations and give greater weight on ecosystem thinking and design.
The interplays and interfaces available from technology and AI applications available to us today can deliver completely different, more compelling innovations. I have been looking at the combination effect of humans, technology and AI in this new interplay on my paul4innovating.com site.
Within this research, I have been questioning how innovation has changed in the last ten years but, more importantly, how design thinking will adapt due to this technology and AI adoption as the avenue of future exploration.
Couple this with Ecosystem thinking and design, and we are moving towards a different, more integrated framework for innovation ecosystems. I provided the story for Innovation Ecosystems as needed to be explained in a previous post.
I see four main components within innovation ecosystems that must be expanded to give this framework meaning. Value creation, knowledge transfer, co-creation and competitive positioning.
I have been evolving my thinking within the concept of innovation ecosystems. The Integrated Framework for Innovation Ecosystems is a conceptual framework which emphasises the importance of recognizing the interconnectedness of value creation, knowledge transfer, co-creation and competitive positioning when combined with how the different strands interact for innovation within ecosystem thinking.
“Effective engagement within innovation ecosystems relies on recognizing the interconnectedness of value creation, knowledge transfer, co-creation, and competitive positioning while navigating the dynamic nature of these networks and measuring the multifaceted impact of innovation, all facilitated by an integrated framework that fosters collaboration and strategic decision-making.”
The emerging story of Integrated Framework for Innovation Ecosystems
I have been looking for a transformative concept now discussed here as the Integrated Framework for Innovation Ecosystems. This framework was not just a combination of ideas but an inspiration for practitioners and researchers seeking to unlock the potential of innovation in various corners of the globe, in organizations and in collaborations of all those wanting to engage in change, growth and sustainability.
Let me explain as the field of innovation ecosystems is highly dynamic and can vary significantly based on specific contexts, goals and different stakeholder involvement. Yet, some principles and components combine into powerful levels of interconnectedness:
Integration Challenges are tough when you are building out anything new in structure, systems and approach; these changes are demanding. It is no different when approaching the design of Ecosystems:
Ecosystems often involve integrating various technologies, systems, and platforms that must be designed to work together across multiple organizations. Ensuring seamless integration can be technically demanding as they must “speak” and exchange seamlessly to gain ongoing value and collective insight. I think it is helpful to consider the challenges this might have:
Integration challenges within ecosystems stem from the need to connect and coordinate different technologies, systems, and platforms that were not originally designed to work together. This complexity can lead to significant problems that hinder the seamless operation of the ecosystem. Let’s consider the challenges faced
I have been spending time arguing for and validating why and how ecosystems in business and applying innovation in their design and thinking are the growing future mechanism for managing new growth, delivering impact and value within Business, and for the final consumer of the goods and services.
The potential within deploying ecosystem thinking can be derived from this highly collaborative approach in finding new ways to design and deliver different options to the existing offerings, offering a different value creation potential, providing for more compelling solutions and finding different ways of solving often complex problems with this co-creating approach.
Yet, I have realized that I have not given the time or attention to the technology issues associated with the move towards adopting an ecosystem approach. So, this post begins to address this.
I believe technology is a vital enabler for building out thriving ecosystems.
Does our technology understanding in organizations and its application to Ecosystem thinking and design fail to be clearly understood as needing a different, perhaps distinctive, structural approach or system?
Building out capability based on a single organization’s needs is a mistake. Understanding the differences in collaborating, co-creating and exchanging across organizations needs a very different design, security and approach mentality.
The theory goes you identify an Ecosystem of like-minded businesses that share a common need to solve a vexing problem, challenge or concept. Then, one party sets up a platform or gains the agreement of one already available, a neutral platform, to use it. Hence, it has all the technology, governance and structure to enable the group to communicate, exchange and build the (emerging) solution to work and then have the structure for it to (rapidly) scale.
The marketplace, the third part, often gets left to last when those achieving this new solution realize it needs a place for actual exchange, a thriving buyer/seller market.
Today, we have witnessed a rapid expansion of the Marketplace on offer. Marketplaces are increasingly being stretched, and the boundaries of their understanding keep extending. We have moved from simply listing, though, to transactional marketplaces ( travel, delivery), full-stack marketplaces (on-demand services- Uber), Market Maker (for homes, cars, jobs) into eCommerce(fashion, groceries) and Direct-to-Consumer( food, banking, wellness, lifestyle and eyewear)
By participating at an Ecosystem level, you are putting clear skin in the game; the platform provider tends to drive the roadmap, provide the governance and often play the lead role. There are so many “neutral” platform providers that much of the technology and engineering solutions can be resolved by using established platforms that many of the tensions, when ecosystems are formed, can fall away, allowing those working on a challenge to focus specifically on that and spend their time breaking down the IP and the returns, building the new solution.
Yet it is the role of the Marketplace that determines increasingly the success. Just reflect on some of the most prominent marketplaces. You have Amazon, Alibaba, Airbnb, Salesforce, Booking, eBay, LinkedIn, etc.
Sometimes, we need to go back to our original roots of thinking to remind ourselves and sometimes refresh the areas of focus we need to emphasise. Today, I focus increasingly on how innovation and ecosystem thinking and design need to combine in the Energy Transition.
I believe Ecosystems in design and thinking must form the future path to travel for innovation, collaborations, invention and growing cooperation. We need to think through more demanding challenges today that are highly complex and to do this with a higher degree of success in valuable outcomes. We need to open our thinking and minds and share knowledge to learn from each other.
A fundamental question to ask: “What do I need to consider for entering into an innovation ecosystem design?”
I can remember getting completely “hooked” on Business Ecosystems by a series from Deliottes and one specific report, introduced and coordinated by Eamonn Kelley, with many contributors including Kelly Machese, Anna Muoio, John Hagel, and Larry Keeley. It was called “Business ecosystems come of age” and maybe it did not change my life, but it gave it a clearer focus- innovation ecosystems. Take a read, it is well worth it, its value then, 2015 has only matured in my mind.
I was also looking at another great piece by Deloitte on tapping into the Silicon Valley innovation ecosystem under a report called “How to Innovate the Silicon Valley Way” that came out in 2016. Another great motivation for focusing on innovation ecosystems.
One question asked in the Silicon Valley piece was “Why should enterprises give up transactional approaches in favor of dynamic, ecosystem-led innovation?
Today I would reverse that question “Why would any company still be locked into transactional approaches only functioning on its own resources?”
Today the struggle is to deal with increasing complexity, undoing the “knot” of difficult challenges and these cannot be undone or solved without collaborations outside one organization’s walls. We need to push this even further and totally accept that the hardest but best collaborations come from being involved in cross-industry or sector innovation systems.
