Evolving Innovation Ecosystems

A Guide to Open Idea Transformation in the Age of Future Tech

Carol L. Stimmel

• Publisher: Auerbach Publications
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781498762793
• eBook ISBN: 9781351649438
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Business

While emerging technologies create massive opportunity, especially for investors and companies that seek more adaptable forms of economic growth than currently available, value is held inert by traditional approaches, patents, and other closed systems. Yet, open data, content, and information may be the key to mass innovation for future technologies, although they bring difficult challenges to private-industry models that depend on the established ideas of intellectual property.

It is from this foundational observation that OpenXFORM (a blending of the words Open and the engineering abbreviation for Transformation) was developed and is explored and described in this book. The intent of the model design is to synthesize an approach to the process of innovation, inspired by natural systems and human-centric design processes. OpenXFORM describes how an open system of innovation can adapt to the unregulated world of information, data, and content; can decompose its own information to release to the open world; and can discover ways to find the points of synergy among the studied and tested methodologies that put human relationships first.

This book presents an explicit innovation process that shows how to move from a breakthrough idea through a process that encourages innovative thinkers to test their assumptions, validate hypotheses, and tune and tweak their ideas, not only to drive solutions for users but also to meet the strategic goals of their companies. The anatomy of innovation through OpenXFORM contains the process for moving ideas from a flight of fancy to an explicit concept that is ready to produce.

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Contents

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Dedication

Epigraph

Foreword

Acknowledgements

About the Authors

Introduction
Conceptualizing Technology and Its Development: Where Innovation Begins

Technical Emergence

Technical Trajectory

Section One
OpenXFORM: Evolutionary Model for Innovation

Chapter One: Reconsidering Information Freedom

1.1 Chapter Theme

1.1.1 The Costs of Tradition

1.1.2 Unconstrained Traditions

1.2 When the Herd Gets Hungry

1.2.1 The Uncertain Relationship Between Collaboration and Scarcity

1.3 Transforming Anti-Innovation

1.3.1 Shared Knowledge Is Power

1.4 Patents: The Protection Scheme We Most Adore

1.5 But, Copyrights—Where the Real Trouble Begins

1.6 Using This Book

Chapter Two: What Open and Free Means to Innovation

2.1 Chapter Theme

2.2 Let’s Talk Freely/Openly

2.2.1 Free/Open in Their Own Words

2.3 How FOSS Created a Cultural Storm

2.3.1 A Walk Backward in Time

2.4 Explore the Past to Shape the Future

2.4.1 It Can Happen Anywhere

2.5 Preinventing the Wheel

Chapter Three: Innovation in an Open World

3.1 Chapter Theme

3.2 The Fashionable World of Innovation

3.2.1 Under a Cloud of Jargon

3.3 Ideals Are Not Required to Make a Good Business Case

3.3.1 The Perils of Openwashing

3.4 Innovation Inertia

3.4.1 The Challenge of Tortilla Chips and Underwear

3.4.2 Why You’re Not an Innovator

3.5 Let’s Get Real

3.5.1 Toward Developing a Model

3.6 Innovation for More than Innovation’s Sake

Chapter Four: Innovation Is Natural

4.1 Chapter Theme

4.2 Imitation Is the Sincerest Form of Inspiration

4.2.1 Inspiration

4.2.2 Translating Natural Models

4.3 The Strategies of Life

4.3.1 Natural Networks

4.3.2 The Balance of Life

4.3.3 Is There an Innovation Ecosystem?

4.4 We Must Adapt, Again

4.4.1 The High Costs of the Next Best Thing

4.4.2 An Anti-Case Study

4.4.3 Highly Principled Disruption

4.4.4 Patterns of Co-Optation

4.5 That’s Not What We Meant

4.5.1 It’s Still About the People

4.6 A New Model? You Can’t Be Serious

Chapter Five: Building an Ecosystem

5.1 Chapter Theme

5.2 Agents of Innovation

5.2.1 Stigmergy for the Masses!

5.2.2 The Extent of Empathy

5.3 From Ants to Innovation

5.3.1 The Value of Context

5.4 The Open Effect

5.4.1 The OpenXFORM Ecosystem

5.5 The OpenXFORM Ecosystem

5.6 From Adaptation to Innovation (and Back Again)

Chapter Six: An Evolutionary Model for Innovation

6.1 Chapter Theme

6.2 The Form of Things

6.2.1 And What of the Anatomy of Our Organizations?

6.2.2 Failure Is Not a Strategy

6.3 The Morphology of Innovation

6.3.1 The Anatomy of Innovation

6.3.2 Comparing Form and Function

6.4 OpenXFORM Terminology

Section One
Review of Themes and Concepts

Chapter One: Reconsidering Information Freedom

The Challenges of Freedom and Abundance

Key Concepts

Chapter Two: What Open and Free Means to Innovation

Being Open and Free

Key Concepts

Chapter Three: Innovation in an Open World

Translating Openness into Innovation

Key Concepts

Chapter Four: Innovation Is Natural

Seeking Inspiration from What Is Before Us

Key Concepts

Chapter Five: Building an Ecosystem

The Extent of Bio-Empathy

Key Concepts

Chapter Six: An Evolutionary Model for Innovation

The OpenXFORM Anatomy

Key Concepts

Section Two
The Anatomy of OpenXFORM

Chapter Seven: Setting Organizational Intention

7.1 Chapter Theme

7.2 The Importance of Forward Momentum

7.2.1 Stop, Look, and Listen

7.2.2 Should We Stay Forever?

7.3 Finding the Innovation Sweet Spot

7.4 When We Learn the Wrong Lessons

7.5 The Innovation Hunt

7.5.1 Wolf-Like Thinking

7.6 In OpenXFORM, Collaboration Is Principled

7.6.1 The Problem of Scale

7.7 Ready, Mindset, Go!

Chapter Eight: OpenXFORM : Ideate

8.1 Chapter Theme

8.2 Structured Wonderment

8.3 Naming Our Work

8.4 Why the Time for Open Ideation Is Here

8.4.1 New Approaches to Innovation

8.5 Climbing the Ideation Peak

8.5.1 The Steps of the Journey

8.5.2 Some Thoughts about Inspiration

8.6 Problem Solvers Need Goals

8.6.1 A Familiar Approach

8.6.2 Ready! Set! Prototype!

8.7 Expectations and Perceptions

Chapter Nine: OpenXFORM:Explore

9.1 Chapter Theme

9.2 The Exploring Mindset

9.2.1 Going ‘Round in Circles

9.3 It’s What’s Inside That Counts

9.3.1 The Domains of Our Assuming

9.3.2 Surveying the Landscape of Co-Creation

9.4 Sightseeing Among Our Assumptions

9.4.1 Concept: Integrated EV Charging Station Mobile App

9.5 Testing Assumptions

9.5.1 Test Assumptions for User Values

9.5.2 Test Assumptions for Technical Feasibility

9.5.3 Test Assumptions for Business Viability

9.5.4 Fully-Realized Concept: Refined Prototype

9.6 The Pivot

Chapter Ten: OpenXFORM :Transform

10.1 Chapter Theme

10.2 Making Innovation Work

10.2.1 The Danger of Ritual Enforcement

10.3 Avoiding Prototype Fetishism

10.4 Stop Being Normal

10.5 Complementary Construction

10.6 From Inputs to Outcomes

10.7 The Ants Are Still Marching

10.7.1 Envisioning Development

10.7.2 Agile Modeling Still Works

Chapter Eleven: Practicing Innovation

11.1 The Art of Provocation

11.2 The Hammer of Chaos

11.2.1 Kick Out the Ladder

11.2.2 Arguing for the Innovation Mindset

11.3 Why OpenXFORM Matters

11.3.1 A Performance Ecosystem

11.3.2 Structure Is Not the Enemy

Section Two
Review of Themes and Concepts

Chapter Seven: Setting Organizational Intention

Maintaining Forward Momentum

Key Concepts

Chapter Eight: OpenXFORM:Ideate

Driving New Ideas Forward

Key Concepts

Chapter Nine: OpenXFORM:Explore

Exploring Our Assumptions

Key Concepts

Chapter Ten: OpenXFORM:Transform

Achieving Readiness to Produce

Key Concepts

Index

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Dedication

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This book is dedicated to Rabbi Deborah Ruth Bronstein, a teacher of great compassion and an inspiration to many in her work for social justice. As my teacher, she taught me to set aside an attachment to rational explanation in exchange for enjoyment of the mysteries found in a single moment of contemplation that requires no justification.

Kol hakavod v’rav b’rachot

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Epigraph

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The Investigator who, in the name of scientific objectivity, transforms the organic into something inorganic, what is becoming into what is, life into death, is a person who fears change . . . in seeing change as a sign of death and in making people the passive objects of investigation in order to arrive at rigid models, one betrays their own character as a killer of life.

— Paulo Friere in Pedagogy of the Oppressed

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Foreword

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The word innovation has been so emptied of meaning that it now sits forlornly in the same pile of once-rich terms such as paradigm, synergy leverage, disruptive, and even agile. Once it becomes essential for everyone to at least pretend to understand the concept behind such a word, it soon enters the lexicon as required in every communiqué, memo, advertisement, corporate rah-rah speech, and résumé. Within months, if not weeks, it becomes nothing but punctuation— noticeable if it missing and essential to the organization of the words around it, but carrying no meaning at all itself. When everything is awesome, then awesomeness is reduced to the required minimum utterance to signal nothing more than a response. A grunt is just as useful. A new breakfast sandwich is declared innovative, and I suppose if your team spent two years designing its marketing, it is. But it’s still just a sandwich.

So, more’s the pity when an important discussion of innovation breaks the surface of all the noise below, because how does one talk about it without having to use the word? Indeed, put “innovate” in the title of a book or an article, and it might as well carry the subtitle, TL;DR ¹—skim only. For an author writing about innovation—and let me emphasize that it remains an essential concern across our civilization—the evisceration of the word demands a compelling and useful argument on how to innovate—not conceptually, but in concrete terms and stepwise directions.

The many benefits of capitalism obscure the often-damaging hunger of capitalism. To sustain the society that modern methods of production have given us requires continuously more efficient use of resources, capital, means of production, and, yes, innovation. And the continuing improvements in efficiencies of production perversely render the entire edifice of capitalism increasingly ¹ more fragile, in turn demanding even more innovation for efficiency as well as new products and services.

In the technical world—and it’s difficult to determine anything not affected by technology these days—efficiencies can be very elusive because measurement of innovation in thinking, in bringing new ideas and methods into utility for companies, is notoriously hard. How do you capture the rate of an idea catching fire? How do you quantify the effort of invention in virtual worlds? In future tech, how does one tell a good egg from a bad egg, and how does one accelerate incubation to get the thing hatched and into the pipeline of innovation?

Carol Stimmel and I have known each other a long time. Our experiences together—and here comes one of those damned words—have a synergy that, for my part at least, brings out the very best in my thinking. She is a challenger to settled thought—not just as a disruptive force, but as one that is creative...

Table of contents

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• Title
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