Ecosystems:
The Future Of Business and Society
Founding a design firm and community:
To be the premier designer, developer, management and governance of strategic
civic ecosystems as a business model.
This paper serves as a brief introduction to the core concepts behind this business venture.
The SmartSwarms Business Design & Development System is a result of over twenty years of study and research into an ecosystem approach to the organization and distribution of resources in a networked economy. The SmartSwarms System uses the collective, collaborative intelligence of a strategic stakeholder community in a continuous design process for the development of products and services. Beginning with a focus on the city's transportation systems. This represents a transformational shift in economics, the relationship between business and society, and the citizen's role in the design and development of their city's critical digitally enhanced infrastructure.
This paper is intended for those with a keen interest with the SmartSwarms Business Design & Development model as the design firm for the future of urban mobility as a career, and/or as a prime community member. This is for people who want to shape the future and make history.
Ecosystems
Economic Ecosystems are an evolutionary advance in how we think about business, society, and its relationship with the citizen consumer. Here are three recent papers from highly renowned institutions that signify the relevance of this shift.
Ecosystems are not a fad or a sexy buzzword. They reflect a true paradigm shift in business. They are a genuinely new organisational form: fluid networks of organisations combining to deliver bundles of products and services in new and unfamiliar ways. And just like the step from single- to multi-cell organisms in nature, they represent a profound evolutionary shift.
Platforms and ecosystems represent a new way of organizing that can yield significant benefits for society. New products and services create citizen value, while new operating models achieve public objectives, from urban regeneration to the development of clean mobility to healthcare improvements. Most saliently, digital ecosystems have the ability to help redefine the boundaries between the public and private spheres, creating new models of “invisible infrastructure” while allowing entrepreneurs to provide the “scaffolding” for new products and services. The true potential of such collaboration will be realized if the technological, operating and regulatory innovations proceed in lockstep, rather than in isolation.
Lastly, from McKinsey&Co
We describe the coming transformation as mobility’s Second Great Inflection Point, because it has the potential to be as profound as the one that put horses to pasture and revolutionized industries and societies worldwide. A defining characteristic of the new world taking shape is that the automotive industry, which has operated for more than a century alongside but decidedly disconnected from other components of what transportation has come to mean, will blend into a more interconnected, customer-centric ecosystem. That shift boosts the odds that the momentous changes afoot will affect your business, even if the closest you currently get to a car is your morning commute.
Unprecedented Opportunity
No matter where you are in your career, moving into the growing field of ecosystem design and management is the smart move. This is the future of business and society, and our intention is the be the global leader in the design and development, and the management and governance of social-business ecosystems. For highly ambitious people, who want to make a real difference in this world, you will find few better opportunities than this one. This is so much more than any start-up you have ever heard of, this is about shaping the future of cities at a systematic level. This is changing the course of history!
We are going to be the world's premier Design, Development, Management and Governance firm for urban mobility ecosystems.
It Starts With Community
At the heart of this model is community. For a mobility ecosystem, this means a community comprised of members from the relevant private sector, members from the public sector, and members from civic society, what will come to be known as the Three Legged Stakeholder Model.
As technology continues to evolve, conversely, it is no longer considered a differentiator. Relationships are now the foundation of business. This is particularly important when designing the future of our transportation systems, and essentially so when it comes to data privacy and data ownership.
Relatedly, when it comes to the design and development of Artificial Intelligence, a user based community is critical.
With a strong multi-stakeholder community, anything is possible!
Community as the Foundation for a User Based Approach to Designing Our Transportation Ecosystem.
One of the earliest characteristics of the internet and networks, was this allowed for a very different relationship between people and information. This enables a radically different approach to the design and development of services, and correspondingly, radical new business models. This is not a matter of choice. If we are going to reach the potential of digital transformation, this will require radical new business models, and organizational designs and structures, in conjunction with culture.
This approach draws from two distinct and related disciplines:
User Based Design (or User Centred Design)
Design Thinking.
One of the distinguishing features of digital transformation is mass customization. By its very nature, customization is a result of the user--that is, the customer!--being involved to some degree in the design process.
When it comes to designing our mobility ecosystems, where we want to both dramatically reduce the costs and impacts of traffic on cities and its citizens, while at the same time increasing the satisfaction and value of the personal transportation experience, there is no better way than to start with a Three Legged Stakeholder Community.
This is a process that ensures engagement and buy-in across the stakeholders, ensures a much greater transparency, and ensures a strategic coherence across the ecosystem.
More so, a user based, stakeholder approach to the design and development of our transportation systems ensures we fully explore what is possible.
Platform Based Ecosystem Orchestration
To put it simply, platform based ecosystem orchestration is the next generation of markets.
It is important for cities and citizens to understand that there can be no one company that can adequately provide the future of urban personal transportation.
The chaos of traffic and congestion, and the enormous costs that this inflicts of our cities and citizens is the result of a market based approach.
Ecosystem Orchestration is the best way to organize the future of urban mobility.
We can not solve for the complexity of today's challenges with yesterday's tools.
We have the technology, we have the knowledge. It is now up to pioneering citizens and professionals to bring their collective abilities together to design and develop tomorrow's business models and systems and infrastructure.
I believe there is no greater opportunity to transform business, society, and our cities than this, and that the SmartSwarms Business Design & Development System is the best way to enable this transformation.
If you are a professional looking for the challenge of a lifetime, join me in founding this venture. For those who catch on, you will blow past every expectation you had for the heights of your career.
If you are a citizen who is passionate about the future of our cities, and want to play a pioneering role in shaping that future, join us in the ongoing design process. For the civic citizen, there is no greater exercise of civic duty than contributing to the design of its future.
Together, we will make history.
