Open World and Open Business

Vía The Cooperation Commons y también recogido en Open Business.

Sólo lo acabo de repasar en un rápido análisis, pero os recomiendo de veras que, si podéis, leáis este documento: Designing Business for an Open World. From Detroit to Hollywood to the Web. Se ha escrito entre un equipo de Herman Miller Inc. y gente del Institute For The Future, ese estupendo proyecto en el que participa Howard Rheingold y del que surge The Cooperation Project, con uno de los blogs imprescindibles para comprender cómo evoluciona la cooperación en este mundo por el que pasamos, a principios del siglo XXI: The Cooperation Commons.

Resumo en este post algunas ideas de este documento, incluyendo citas textuales del mismo.

Today’s business world is suddenly full of unexpected questions. Una idea para comenzar a diseñar nuevos modelos de negocio. ¿No estamos viendo que pasan cosas inesperadas? Pues entonces tenemos que entender que hay otras formas de enfrentar el hecho empresarial. Casi nada existe como paso obligado en los nuevos modelos. Eso sí, somos los mismos artistas de siempre: clientes, innovación, servicio, valor añadido, proveedores, segmentos y nichos de mercado. Lo de siempre, pero totalmente diferente por una recombinación de fuerzas y de formas de entenderlas.

With a matured Internet, we are seeing a third wave of transformation in the way we organize our society, share our personal creativity, and generate innovations. It requires a new way of thinking – “open platform thinking” — that goes against the grain of traditional business practices and conventional business wisdom. It is hard for us to imagine. It is not what we have been taught. But a whole new generation is growing up, learning, playing, and creating in this new environment. It may not be clearly in view to us yet, but several pieces of the cooperative business landscape are here already…

Tenemos que aprender de experiencias pasadas. El documento arranca de planteamientos como el de Toyota: todo un referente para comprender la importancia de las relaciones y de la cooperación en el mundo de los negocios. Quizá haya que volver a leer aquel estupendo análisis de de James P. Womack, Daniel T. Jones y Daniel Ross: La máquina que cambió el mundo. Pero ahora hay posibilidades que entonces, hace ya cerca de 20 años, no podían ni vislumbrarse. Quizá los referentes que estamos buscando para el futuro estén escondidos en ciertas prácticas ya existentes y que tenemos que recombinar.

Open Platforms succeed because they attract diverse skills, expand scarce resources, provide adaptability, create new markets, and establish new standards.

Esta es una idea fundamental: crear nuevos mercados, establecer nuevos estándares. Tenemos que convencernos a nosotr@s mism@s de que podemos generar algo diferente de lo que existe. Jugar con las viejas reglas es posible pero te conduce por un camino tortuoso donde encontrarás palabras críticas como productividad, ahorros en costes, protección del conocimiento… lucha sin cuartel para tumbar al competidor. Son unas reglas que generan desconfianza. Ahora no se trata de saber jugar bien sino de inventar otro tipo de juegos.

Three Key Dynamics
At the core of the new cooperative business landscape are three dynamics—networks, emergent self-organization, and cooperation. While these are not new phenomena, together they create systems and strategies that unlock value trapped in old models characterized by rigid hierarchies, formal resource management plans, and competitive strategies. They form a platform for rapid adaptation, creativity, and the harnessing of new resources that otherwise could not have been valued in traditional methods.

Especialmente interesante, lo vuelvo a citar, es el caso de Toyota como referente de red, con las ventajas que esto trae ante debilidades de un nodo concreto de la red:

Toyota treats its suppliers as a lateral, peer-to-peer social network rather than as subordinates competing with each other in a business hierarchy. This has some
remarkable implications. In 1997, a key supplier factory that produced an essential part for Toyota’s cars burned down. The network of suppliers self-assembled a working group that determined what kinds of machines were in that factory, where you could locate those machines, where you could move them, how to connect them, and how to get that assembly line going again. Because of high levels of trust and distributed authority, the network was able to get the parts produced again and out to the assembly line, losing only two days.

Por último, incorporar un rasgo que, desde mi punto de vista, es que el genera quizá la mayor novedad de planteamiento. ¿Por qué? Porque une de forma radical lo que por ahora sólo se entiende como una cuestión cosmética en las empresas: su responsabilidad social. Pero no entendida como algo por lo que también ahora debe preocuparse (si no, la sociedad se le echa encima). No, no es este el planteamiento. El quid de la cuestión es que la empresa se implica desde su mismo origen, en generar beneficio para la sociedad, para the commons, que dicen los anglosajones.

This strategy reframes competitive situations as non-zero-sum games—those in which someone does not have to lose in order for there to be a winner. It focuses on increasing resources for the collective whole.
The key challenge is in enlisting selfish interests to contribute to the common pool. By carefully restructuring incentives, groups can create conditions where free riding—or using a resource without sharing in the cost—can become a benefit rather than a negative. Some players have figured out how to do this well.

Finaliza el documento planteando ocho «open platforms»:

1. La plataforma de las ideas. The Idea Platform leverages a flow of ideas through a solutions commons. This platform is a transparent locus—porous, neither proprietary nor secret—where solution seekers and problem solvers can freely find each other. Speed, externalized costs and transparency.
2. La plataforma del talento. The Talent Platform is a network of diverse individuals mobilized by equally diverse motivations. They self-select tasks and self-organize into groups to create knowledge, solve problems, and develop resources. Leadership emerges from the context of tasks and problems rather than being assumed by title or organizational position. Peers acknowledge and follow a leader by virtue of his or her skills. It isn’t “What does the boss want?” but rather “Who should be the boss now?”. Self-organizing groups, self-selected tasks and contextual leadership.
3. La plataforma de la simbiosis. By providing access to information, software code, or core products, a Symbiosis Platform opens the gates for outside parties to help develop an abundance of new symbiotic products and services that can either increase a company’s existing assets or lead to innovations in adjacent markets. Under-the-hood access, rapid feature extensions and adjacent markets.
4. La plataforma de la innovación a través del usuario. The User Innovation Platform helps a company develop core products or services up to a certain level and then allows lead users to take them to the next levels. While this may look like mass customization, it is really about developing a community of users who express themselves not only through their innovations of the product, but also through their relationship with the community as a whole. User developer, communities of self-expression and brand loyalty.
5. La plataforma de la interfaz. The Interface Platform engages others—by invitation or serendipitously—to enrich and extend one experience with a variety of related experiences. It makes brand or design the hub of complementary experiences. And at the center of the experience is the individual, the unique “me” who’s making it all very personal. Branded design, experience hub, evolving plug-in’s.
6. La plataforma Zealot. The Zealot Platform helps sharing economies generate revenue by leveraging social networks. It’s the evolution of the fan club into a friend-of-a-friend (FOAF) network of people eager to support their favorite art or artist or cause. And because FOAF networks grow exponentially, penny spending adds up to real dollars. Sharing economies, leveraged connections and swarm marketing.
7. La plataforma del conocimiento. Knowledge Platforms leverage tacit knowledge co-created by lateral social network exchanges into a basis for emergent learning. Rather than categorizing—and protecting—knowledge in proprietary formal databases, they are much more likely to tap into the informal categories—or folksonomies—that emerge when people share information informally. Rather than using proprietary knowledge to negotiate the “best deal,” they use open networks of knowledge to build broad-based competency and resources. Emergent learning, folksonomies and co-created knowledge.
8. La plataforma de la distribución. The Distribution Platform deciphers the buying patterns of millions to predict and extend individual customer demand deep into the “long tail” of niche markets, whose aggregated value generate greater value than the mass-appeal blockbuster hits. It is not structured around product lines nor vertical markets, but the hidden similarities of customer interest. Pattern recognition, recommendation system and aggregated long tail.

Bien, si has llegado hasta aquí, gracias. Seguimos desarrollando la idea para nuevos modelos de negocio. Puedes encontrar más información vía The Cooperation Commons.