Posts Tagged ‘haque’

New organizational structures are enabling conversations and creating new markets.

More on the blurring lines between corporations and people, via my strategy wonk filter Ethan Bauley

Jeff Jarvis in BusinessWeek, Detroit Should Get Cracking on its Googlemobile:

I don’t suggest that design should be a democracy. But shouldn’t design at least be a conversation?

In the same way that “markets are conversations”, “design” has always been a conversation; traditionally that conversation only occurred in the marketplace when people make their decisions to buy or not buy a company’s designs.

What’s changed is that the platforms and cultures are beginning to change to allow us to expand that “conversation” into the realm of the the organization; we (as companies) are able to involve people (our prospective consumers) in tactical product decisions before the products reach the markets. This expansion of the conversation creates new markets; new markets that create new value propositions, new core competencies and new sources of capital for organizations and people.

How?

Start thinking about:

I’m not the only one thinking about the need for innovation in organizational structures. So much thought-provoking strategy gold on the web, where to start?

Why would the venture industry be any different?

Is commenting the new blogging?

Umair Haque, Asleep at the Wheel of Creative Destruction:

The lack of new industries, markets, and categories is the great accelerator of the macropocalypse.

… Imitation – not innovation – is woven into the fabric of the 20th century venture economy. Why are venture investors failing to seed new industries and markets? Because venture funds invest not just in all the wrong places, ignoring clear supply and demand signals – but, worse, in all the wrong and same places. Where one pioneer invests, a slew of imitators follow, and so tremendous amounts of cash are poured into the same business design or market space – ad exchanges, social networks, and blogging/vlogging platforms to name just a few recent fads. That striking homogeneity reflects an almost total lack of strategic imagination by venture players.

Highlighting one of the five cited economic challenges from the follow-up post, Five Problems Venture Capitalists Should Have Solved (But Didn’t):

Business models for public goods. Here’s the paradox of the digital economy: digital goods are also public goods. So how do we capture value from them? It’s a tough problem – but most venture funds haven’t even tried most of the emerging solutions (here are some: turn goods into services, amplify scarcity, and democratize pricing). What does it say when a band – Radiohead – is better able to break new ground in developing business models for public goods than venture investors?

My comment:

Why would we expect the venture industry to be any different than other industries, any more forward-thinking, any less susceptible to imitators, any more driven by incentives and the systems they create?

We don’t tend to create new industries and markets until we have to; venture capital and “professional entrepreneurship” is still a relatively nascent industry and has been able to grow without needing to make tough choices or tough changes.

Venture investing isn’t dead; it’s just at that point in the cycle where creative change is needed. It’s just a bit more obvious to you than most.

I’ve personally met many people that are creating new models for venture and economic development; they are testing, pursuing and creating new paths not because the paths are proven but because they see a range of opportunities. I would be surprised if a “new DNA” didn’t emerge.

Closely related: Supporting early-stage ventures: How do you help someone fish?

MORE: Financial Models for Entrepreneurs