Admired Disorder: A Guide to Building Innovation Ecosystems: Complex Systems, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, And Economic Development

by Alistair M. Brett

Overview

Innovation requires supportive innovation ecosystems. This book is about building innovation ecosystems and improving existing ones. These have the character of complex adaptive systems. Innovation ecosystems do not just happen; they need to be engineered. Cases and examples in the book of how to engineer innovation ecosystems illustrate widely applicable fundamentals. No previous knowledge of complexity is assumed. Innovation ecosystems are systems of people usually in organizations behaving as normal non-rational beings, making decisions, experiencing successes and failure, learning, and living. An innovation ecosystem is a complex system of connections and relationships among people and their environment. We call these Rainforests or complex adaptive systems. This book applies complex adaptive systems and Rainforest Thinking to building innovation ecosystems. Understanding such systems helps deliver economic and social benefits: entrepreneurship, new business opportunities, workforce utilization, exports, investment, quality of life, prosperity, and more in a holistic, positive manner; and, most importantly, a robust innovation culture. Strategic planning and planning strategies change when the environment is a mix of certainty and uncertainty, as in complex adaptive systems.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781543966183
Publisher:	BookBaby
Publication date:	03/31/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	282
File size:	11 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Alistair M. Brett has over 30 years of international consulting experience in some 15 developed and developing countries around the globe, specializing in commercializing science and technology, and developing support mechanisms for technology commercialization from universities and research centers. Alistair focuses on how understanding innovation ecosystems as complex adaptive systems not only opens up the large volume of research on such systems but also help to analyze, design, create, and maintain, support for innovation in businesses, organizations, regions, and countries. He is the co-founder of the Center for Technology Commercialization and the Center's graduate tech-nology management degree programs at the Academy of National Economy in Moscow, Russia. He has some 20 years of experience in higher education administration. Alistair is also a senior consultant to The World Bank. He holds a B.Sc. in Physics from the University of London, and a Ph.D. in Theoreti-cal Physics, from the University of St. Andrews (Scotland), and Drexel University (USA).

Table of Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 Summary of book Sections: Applications 9

3 A Little Background 15

4 What is an Innovation Ecosystem? 23

5 What is a Complex Adaptive System? 29

6 The Science of Innovation Ecosystems: A Brief Introduction 40

7 The Rainforest Model Explained 47

8 Systems, Models, and Attractors 59

9 The Ties That Bind Us: Strong Links, Weak Links, and Relevant Links 74

10 Building Blocks for Innovation Ecosystems 81

11 Boundaries, Limits, and Connections 100

12 Boundary Spanners: Network Holes and How to Plug Them 109

13 Contextual Qualifiers: One Size Doesn't Fit All 117

14 Networks and Feedback 125

15 Wicked Problems are Everywhere 134

16 Hierarchy and Necessity 144

17 Cause, Effect, and Trying to Predict 153

18 Sowing the Seeds of Resilience: Shocks to the System 161

19 Indicators and Fallibility 166

20 Noise and Housekeeping 177

21 Reusing Knowledge: Create Early, Use Often 181

22 Should Everything be Optimized? 186

23 Thinking about Diffusion 203

24 Practical Reasoning: Decision Making and Solving the Right Problem 208

25 Strategies for Building Innovation Ecosystems: The Workbook 222

26 A Framework, Geometry, and Grammar for Rainforests 259

27 Beyond Metaphor 268

28 What Next? 272