The Next Engine: Beyond Campaign Thinking

The Winter 2008 edition of the Stanford Social Innovation Review has an interesting take on ecosystems, something we at the Next Engine are quite fond of as tools for understanding an industry or concept. They’ve broken it down into the Four C’s: Coalitions, Communications, Credibility and Contingencies.

Coalitions:
That systemic change is more often created by coalitions of entrepreneurs and organizations, rather than by a single individual or organizations’ unilateral actions.

Communications:
Fairly obvious. If ecosystems aren’t framed effectively to communicate their objectives, they will likely fail to achieve anything.

Credibility:
Without credibility, it is often difficult to convince anyone that not only is a systemic change needed, but that it will work.

Contingencies:
Many ecosystems are based on complex organic or social elements that make the consequences difficult to predict. Having a backup plan is crucial.

I would add one more to this list: Connections. It seems obvious, but not getting this aspect right defeats the entire purpose of an ecosystem. I’ve seen too many alleged ecosystems contain subtopics attached to larger topics they have little in common with. Indeed, some of the choices seem to have been based on available space of the page! Why bother?

This leads right back to C No. 2, Communications. If any aspect of the ecosystem has been ignored, the entire ecosystem will fail. There is a term called “mousetrap system”. A common snap mousetrap is a perfect device; simple, with no unnecessary parts. Remove any one of those parts and the trap will not function.

What would you add to this list?

Tags: Toolkit