Bridges To Knowledge: A Blog by Barry Camson

Sustainability and Human Evolution

Are human beings, H. sapiens, genetically disposed to being unsustainable in the current ecological situation of our planet? This is a question raised by William Rees in a 2010 article, "What's blocking sustainability? Human nature, cognition and denial."

Integrating Ecosystem and Value Chain Design in Sustainability Efforts, Revisited

How can one use the practice of design to implement sustainability approaches in organizations and in their surrounding ecosystems?

This is a daunting challenge especially with regard to ecosystems because the ecosystem of even a small polluter can be inhabitants of the entire planet or certainly a region of the globe.

One really needs to take a whole-earth perspective to fully comprehend this. This is vividly demonstrated in the recent "school-strike" catalyzed by Greta Thunberg of Sweden which involved 1.6 million young people in almost 1700 cities and towns in over 123 countries in every continent.

We do have to start somewhere in terms of organizations and one place to start is to gain a concept of the system with which we are dealing. This involves viewing the organization in terms of what may be a more linear, value-chain as well as seeing the organization as part of a larger ecosystem.

Ecosystem Members Co-creating Designs

I have been expressing the idea in previous posts that in an ecosystem, knowledge and skills are continually exchanged by members of the ecosystem in the process of ongoing value co-creation. In this article, I will apply this to designing in ecosystems.

Lately, I have read some academic articles that talk about extending this process of value co-creation to participative, redesign efforts in an ecosystem. As Lucy Kimbell from the University of Oxford states, design can be a distributed social effort in which the role of a central designer is not privileged. In this view, design is carried out by professional designers and by end-users and others. (Kimbell, 2011, 2012). In practice, this could include members of the HR organization.

Adaptive Design For Collaborative Ecosystems

This article sets out a working description of a collaborative ecosystem in which value is co-created. It describes what needs to be attended to in the process of adaptive design for the ecosystem. It sets out a path forward in pursuing adaptive design for a collaborative ecosystem.

Are you an Ecosystem?

Being an ecosystem involves recognizing all those engaged in the co-creation of value and in ongoing relationships with one another constituting a larger network. This is qualitatively different from seeing your organization plus all of the business relationships it has with its different providers and stakeholders. It is different from seeing your customer or client as the recipient of the goods or services that you develop.

Whither the Ecosystem: Thoughts on Business Ecosystem Design

If we are going to be productive in terms of adding value in our contemporary world, we have a number of choices about how we go about doing that. What kind of human and business relationships do we develop with those around us? This post looks at the value chain, the value network and developing ideas of the business ecosystem and then moves on to address specific aspects of ecosystem design.

Why Innovation Labs?

In our globalized and networked world, it is easy for new trends to take root. One such trend is that of Innovation Labs. There are Innovation Labs to develop products and services. There are Innovation Labs to develop projects and improve the organization in business. There are Innovation Labs to improve government services. There are Social Innovation Labs to organize communities to improve the society in important ways. Such activity does reflect some inherent value to the approach. But, what is the value? And, why now?

Building A Networked Shared Society

Being in a network opens up the possibility of living with a number of different perspectives, world views, mental models - essentially a number of differing realities. At the same time, being in a network also carries with it the possibility of creating shared space among these many differing realities. The issue in a network is determining what exactly is shared and how much is shared.

A Day Of Collective Impact

Collective Impact has come to Israel as I pointed out in a previous post.(Hebrew version) There are already a number of Collective Impact efforts going on or in the process of being developed in Israel.

Today, I attended a workshop put on by the Joint Distribution Committee which has its main Israel offices in Jerusalem. The JDC Israel or the "Joint" as it is called "deals with the advancement of quality of life, equality of opportunities and reduction of gaps in Israeli society. The organization works among populations irregardless of religious, national or political identity."

I spoke with a number of people in between sessions to get a perspective on what Israelis see as important about Collective Impact and the challenges of pursuing Collective Impact in Israel. Here is what I learned along with my own comments.

Is This A Network?

"Is this a network?" is a question that I find myself continually asking as I encounter each unique grouping of organizations that are linked together in different ways. Naturally, what one concludes in answer to this question depends on what one's definition of a network is. I have reviewed the literature and reflected on my own experience and here is how I would define an inter-organizational network.

The CVO Network: An Innovative Approach To Leveraging Resources In The NGO Sector, Part 4

This is the last post in this series about the CVO network in Haifa, Israel. The previous post dealt with interaction and knowledge sharing in the CVO network. This post will look at examples of CVO successes and the dynamics among the various aspects of the CVO network.

Acknowledging and Sharing Success

CVO is proud of the courses that it runs. Yael Abada, the CVO Director stated, "organizations outside of Haifa come to us and say that they want to be in the course, in the network. Courses are very professional. People get a lot of knowledge, tools, connections."

Another accomplishment of CVO is being a local infrastructure which is very unique in Israel. Yael said, there is no other organization on the local level that is doing what we are doing. People want to learn what we are doing and how we are doing it."

CVO has gained experience and had success in building networks and increasing the power of organizations working together. They have success in increasing the voice of organizations.

CVO has been successful with the use of clusters. The Special Needs cluster and the Young Adults clusters are examples of successful CVO clusters. The Special Needs cluster is made up of 33 organizations. The Young Leadership cluster is made up of 15 organizations. Signs of success for a cluster are: if other organizations want to joint the cluster; if they produce new connections or new projects; if they have collaborations among themselves; if they promote issues or if they have products.

CVO would like to be doing more to share knowledge with others in regard to clusters, the Lead Haifa program and new programs being initiated with leaders of the recent protests in Israel. CVO would like to focus more on how members could work together to lobby.

Dynamic Relationships Among Network Elements

All of the network elements set out here act to support and reinforce one another.

Fostering interaction between individuals and organizations in order to build relationships and the atmosphere of CVO is a key driver. Facilitation supports achieving this. Facilitation results in norms that guide actions and behaviors and helps to create a good working atmosphere among members. Focusing and re-focusing on mission continues to be helpful to motivate members and to keep CVO on course. Having an approach to recruitment and inclusion supports the mission and lays a foundation for interaction.

The governing and convening structures especially the clusters and sub-teams do the work of CVO.

Funding enables all of this to happen and ultimately results in value that is added by the efforts of CVO to members, individuals and the community. Part of this value is what knowledge CVO is in a position to share with various Haifa community groups and those outside of Haifa.

The leaders' theory of change is specifically appropriate for operating and governing as a network and underlies many of the other network activities.

Conclusion

In the twenty first century, there are increasing instances of people and organizations operating as networks. This is certainly supported by the interactive capabilities of the Internet. Beyond this, there is the recognition that often the highest leverage for advancing the goals of individual organizations consists in affiliating as a network. This is especially true in the non-profit sector where individual organizations do not have the benefit that private sector organizations do in generating revenue and funding. CVO is a significant illustration of the value of the network approach in the NGO sector.