{"id":3729,"date":"2019-10-03T08:39:38","date_gmt":"2019-10-03T08:39:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dgen.net\/0\/?p=3729"},"modified":"2019-10-07T18:40:00","modified_gmt":"2019-10-07T18:40:00","slug":"an-evolution-in-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dgen.net\/0\/2019\/10\/03\/an-evolution-in-process\/","title":{"rendered":"An evolution in process"},"content":{"rendered":"

The above chart is an evolution of the work<\/a> of Simon Wardley, which I’ve been following for many years. It feels like we’re in another phase-change based on the impact of the web and technology: of radically centralised+decentralised tensions, of systems that self-organise\/self-actuate, where teams are spread as constellations, and where ‘open’ (for many varying definitions of the word) is a central forcing function of change.<\/p>\n

“Innovators must deter competition to get some of the value they created”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This view has been at the heart of our industrial economic drive\u2014I think most of my career has been anchored in trying to invert it.<\/p>\n

In creating open businesses I’ve continuously sought to increase the number of connections, not the size of the moat<\/a>: building federated systems not centralised fiefdoms, actively encouraging imitation and rapid evolution. In the long-term, I think the impact of being open is far more profound as a culture shift.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Moats draw their power to prevent imitation from one of four basic sources:<\/p>\n

The state<\/strong>
\nWe’ve created regulation that mandates ‘open’ systems, such as Open Banking<\/a>. This is now in-force in the UK and in development in 20 countries. The impact, I think, will be both innovation and the radical erosion of ‘excess profit’ to make open markets operate the way they were intended.<\/p>\n

Special know-how<\/strong>
\nThe web removes this as a barrier pretty quickly. The cost of setting up, for example, a bank is now 1\/10th to 1\/100th what it used to be. Moore’s Law applies to business models not just technology.<\/p>\n

Scale<\/strong>
\nDitto scale. Cloud compute + web + mobile decimates the path to the customer faster and at greater scale than anything else we’ve invented.<\/p>\n

System rigidity<\/strong>
\nSystems rigidity is a bug, not a feature. Startups route around rigidity faster than incumbents can hold a meeting. Note that rigidity is not the same thing as resilience or robustness.<\/p>\n

And, with a startup lens: “Startups that aim to create value can\u2019t have a moat when they begin, uncertainty is what protects them from competition until a proper moat can be built. Uncertainty becomes their moat.”<\/p>\n

So, what next, moat-economy enthusiasts? How do these ideas evolve in a web-first society & economy?<\/strong><\/p>\n

My friend Peter<\/a> commented:<\/p>\n

“Innovation must be open and collaborative, value is created by societies not individuals, through innovation, because it is not an absolute, it is a differential, it is how we rescue wealth from the inevitable decay imposed\u00a0by obsolescence and environmental “externalities”. Individuals who hoard end up sitting on a pile of worthless rubbish … and our society is geared up to pay them for the privilege – i.e. we pay for the decay of the wealth of others<\/strong><\/em>. That’s what being rich means in this unsustainable zero sum game.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The above chart is an evolution of the work of Simon Wardley, which I’ve been following for many years. It feels like we’re in another […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3748,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,45,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-research","category-social-change"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/dgen.net\/0\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/evolution-process.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pfJFK3-Y9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dgen.net\/0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dgen.net\/0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dgen.net\/0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dgen.net\/0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dgen.net\/0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3729"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/dgen.net\/0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3742,"href":"https:\/\/dgen.net\/0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3729\/revisions\/3742"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dgen.net\/0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dgen.net\/0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dgen.net\/0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dgen.net\/0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}