I remember throwing this word out carelessly in the early days of my career in innovation strategy. It was great jargon, whether it confused my listeners (or readers as the case may be), or it gave them a better understanding of what the heck I was talking about, I really didn’t care. It was like the word “awesome”, or “platform”, or … the list went on — words that had found their way into our everyday vocabulary so much so that we hardly ever asked what it meant in every context we used it in.
I once heard someone say something to the effect that the attention we pay to words is a measure of our intellectual diligence. While you may not agree to that claim, there is definitely something worth exploring when it comes to semantic norms in the tech/innovation space. Paying attention to what we mean when we say certain words can help us clarify meaning, intent and goals. But more importantly, especially for words that speak of contribution of some sort — like “ecosystem” — attention becomes more of a duty, or an obligation that may rally together the collective effort of many.
After a while, I actually did ask myself that question- what is an innovation ecosystem?
It was at a point when I was saddled with the task of designing a new program. The outcomes were meant to be tangible, the consequences of failure were grave and the chances of misinterpretation was high.
So i gave it a lot of thinking, and this is what i came up with:
An innovation ecosystem is an incentive-driven engine through which problem(s) are identified, talent is mobilized to solve the problems, and solutions are created at a scale that tackles the problem(s) effectively.
Ok, I get that you are not into definitions and stuff like that .. so let’s break it down.
An ecosystem consists of three main components:
1. Problem — Solution Mix
2. Talent
3. Risk Capital
It is important to note that different contributors can/will play a role in each of these components, and there may be more than one contributor to a given component.
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