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New Foundations of Platform - Ecosystem Thinking

Designing Products and Organizations for a changing world

Watch the release webinar from Nov. 20th

Download the Whitepaper

DOWNLOAD

Download the Executive Summary

DOWNLOAD

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

The context

It was 2013 when we released our first version of Platform Design Toolkit.

On October 2016, we published the Platform Design Toolkit 2.0 and the companion White Paper “From business modeling to platform design” becoming real pioneers of a new way of thinking organizations and products. The Toolkit and the White Paper have been fundamental since then in instigating and shaping the practice of Platform Design with a community that today counts more than sixty thousand adopters worldwide.

We’ve been active in research and consulting with an impressive range of stakeholders: from Fortune 500s to startups, from organizational transformation pioneers such as Chinese Haier group to United Nations. Such experience puts Boundaryless among the leaders of Platform-Ecosystems thinking worldwide.

After more than three years we’re now aware that the context and scope of platform-ecosystem thinking have changed and have grown widely: New Foundations of Platform-Ecosystem Thinking are now needed.

This is what this white paper is all about, and this fundamental piece of content is released in Creative Commons like everything else we do, so you join us in the process of building the future of organizations and business models.

The Boundaryless Team

This white paper will help you understand

How scalable strategies are essential to engage with new socio-economic trends and global risk factors characterizing these unpredictable times.

How organizations can keep—or gain— a central position in business ecosystems while embracing governance models that ensure whole-system development.

What opportunities exist for platform thinking as markets become more complex, heavily regulated and investment intensive.

How new frontier technologies such as blockchain, machine learning, AI, biotech and more are opening new possibilities to mobilize and connect ecosystems.

How the boundaries and the shape of a traditional organization are now blurring into interconnected, distributed and collaborative organizing.

Whitepaper Cover

The Sensemaking Webinars

We just launched a series of webinars featuring special guests, helping us go further in the exploration of the next wave of platforms and ecosystems that we explore in the Whitepaper.
Leave your email to be promptly informed about upcoming webinars, new releases of tools and various updates related to the Whitepaper research:

Watch the first Sensemaking webinar below: in this panel discussion, Dave Snowden, Lisa Gill, Sergio Caredda and Roberto Battaglia delved into organizational developments needed to adapt to the rapidly changing landscape.

From our Sponsor

“The competitive arena in the financial and banking industry is going to change much more rapidly that we could ever expect. The resilience and flexibility of our organizational structures face enormous challenges: to adapt from a hyper-regulated world, where most of the products and services are mature, to a new one where Environmental, Social and Governance propositions need to coalesce: every client, sector, activity will be impacted by this evolution.

Change is often accompanied by resistance, bureaucracy, short-termism, and we're often slow to respond to a fast-changing environment: now it's time to embrace a new paradigm and a new approach to design where people in networks can translate big transformative visions into concrete actions.

Intesa Sanpaolo is pleased to support this research initiative, and to collaborate with Boundaryless and its network in envisioning a modern approach to the evolution of the organization that is flexible, outside-in and proactive.”

Gian Marco Salcioli

Head of Strategic Marketing
Corporate & Investment Banking

Research Updates

Read all the updates

Latest update

Notes on global risks and value creation narratives: setting the scene for organizational evolutions

Boundaryless 2020 White Paper Research Update #7

Managed & Vertical Marketplaces: impacts on the shape of the Ecosystemic Organization

Boundaryless 2020 White Paper Research Update #6

Pervasive Marketplaces, Deflating Risk & a new Human Development Thesis

Boundaryless 2020 White Paper Research Update #5

From the Information Age to Sense-Making Organisations

Boundaryless 2020 White Paper Research Update #4

Organizing for Complex Times: Divisionality and Modularity

Boundaryless 2020 White Paper Research Update #3

NEW FOUNDATIONS OF PLATFORMS & ECOSYSTEMS THINKING

The Evolving Future of the Platform Economy

2020 White Paper Research Update #8

See Older Posts

A Compass to Explore the Future of Platforms & Ecosystems

Support the research plan for a new whitepaper from the Platform Design Toolkit team

New Foundations of Platform-Ecosystem Thinking

Boundaryless 2020 White Paper Research Update #1

Podcast Interviews

Listen to all episodes

Latest episodes

Season 2 EP #8
Becoming Anything you want in the Platform Value Chain

with Adrien Nussenbaum

Season 2 EP #7
Enabling an Ecosystem of Civil Servants in the Age of Platforms

with Robyn Scott

Season 2 EP #6
Democratizing the Platform Economy through Marketplace as a Service 

with Juho Makkonen

Season 2 EP #5
Building Scalable Organizations that can Deal with Uncertainty

with Dave Snowden

Season 2 EP #4
Experience Platforms: Staging Experiences through an Ecosystem

with B. Joseph Pine II

Season 2 EP #3
Platform Talent: Jobs & Skills for the Age of Networks

with Peter C. Evans

Season 2 EP #2
Embeddedness: Exploring the Roots of the Eastern idea of Organizing

with Alicia Hennig

Season 2 EP #1
Re-bundling the Firm around Problems to Be Solved

with Sangeet Paul Choudary

A Beacon for Future Explorations – Wrapping up Season 1

with Bill Fischer and Lisa Gansky

Building Complex Organizations through Simple Constraints

Zappos — with John Bunch

The Future of Platforms in the midst of Silicon Valley’s moral reckoning

with Jeremiah Owyang

Human Value as the North Star: Regulating pervasive platforms

with Marshall Van Alstyne and Geoffrey Parker

The Entrepreneurial Age: Networks and a fragmenting world

with Nicolas Colin

Organizations as Architectures for Complexity

with Joe Norman

Remaking the Case for Strategy in an Interdependent World

with Martin Reeves

Unleashing Thoughtful Innovation at Scale

with Alex Osterwalder

Tackling the Fundamental Problems of Organising at Scale

with Joost Minnaar

Redrawing the Human Development Thesis for the 21st Century

with Indy Johar

Organizing in Nested Systems: Re-regionalisation, Landscape and Global Solidarity

with Daniel Wahl

Checkpoint episode: Ecosystems – between the “no more” and the “not yet”

with Lisa Gansky

Ecosystemic Organizations and the Future of Work

with Stowe Boyd

Leadership as Architecting: Transforming Organisations into Thriving Ecosystems

with Bill Fischer

Commons-based peer production at the edge of a chaotic transition

with Michel Bauwens

Brands in Transition: The Sociology of Ecosystems

with Ana Andjielic

Beyond markets: sense-making and organising, in a world of open networks

with John Robb

From Fab Cities to Fab Citizens: remaking organising

with Tomás Diez

Unveiling the math behind society (and what to do about it)

with James Currier

Rewiring the technology to rewire the way we organise

with Arthur Brock

Opening episode: Exploring the future of organising at scale with Boundaryless conversations

with Simone Cicero & Stina Heikkilä

Check out all episodes on your favorite podcast player

Timeline

2020
January 20

Launching the research plan for the new Whitepaper

On 20 January, we launched the research plan for our new Whitepaper, aware that – after more than three years – the context and scope of platform-ecosystem thinking have changed and grown widely.

Read the inaugural post: New Foundations of Platform-Ecosystem Thinking.

March 16

Research Updates

On 16 March, we launched the first of a series of eight research updates, where we keep the community updated on our latest progress on the research plan for the whitepaper. The first one introduced A Compass to Explore the Future of Platforms & Ecosystems, with research questions corresponding to different key areas we explore.

Read all the previous research updates:

    1. Research Update #1: A Compass to Explore the Future of Platforms & Ecosystems
    2. Research Update #2: The Paradoxes of Organising in a fast-changing world: Markets & Networks
    3. Research Update #3: Organizing for Complex Times: Divisionality and Modularity
    4. Research Update #4: From the Information Age to Sense-Making Organisations
    5. Research Update #5: Pervasive Marketplaces, Deflating Risk & a new Human Development Thesis
    6. Research Update #6: Managed & Vertical Marketplaces: impacts on the shape of the Ecosystemic Organization
    7. Research Update #7: Notes on global risks and value creation narratives: setting the scene for organizational evolutions
    8. Research Update #8: The Evolving Future of the Platform Economy

 

March 18

Kicking off the Whitepaper Community Sense-Making Calls

On 18 March, we kicked off our Whitepaper Community Calls, where we explored the latest research findings together with the community. In the calls, we provided space for reflection and deep conversations, seeking to build a collective sense-making practice.

Watch all the sessions on our Youtube channel:

  1. Community Sense-Making Call #1
  2. Community Sense-Making Call #2
  3. Community Sense-Making Call #3
  4. Community Sense-Making Call #4
April 7

LAUNCH of Boundaryless Conversations Podcast

On 7 April, we launched the Boundaryless Conversations Podcast, a vital part of the research project where we speak to amazing thought leaders from the world of organizational and societal transformation, including names like John Robb, James Currier, Alex Osterwalder, Bill Fischer, Michel Bauwens, Ana Andjelic and many more. Don’t miss to subscribe to it on your favorite platform!

Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Soundcloud, Stitcher, CastBox, RadioPublic, and other major podcasting platforms.

We also provide our key insights, show notes and interview transcripts on our Medium stories: https://stories.platformdesigntoolkit.com/podcast/home

May 11

Revamp of the Early Adopters Kit and Explorer Packages

On 11 May, we launched the revamped versions of the Early Adopters Kit and Explorer Packages, for those interested in supporting our research, and keep all our contents and tools in the Creative Commons. A BIG thank you to our almost 50 supporters – without you, the journey would not have been the same!

May 15

Checkpoint episode: between the “no more” and “not yet”

On 15 May, we released a checkpoint episode with Boundaryless’ long-term advisor Lisa Gansky, where she offers an interesting framing of the “No More” and “Not Yet”: a sweet spot for innovators and builders of new ways of organising and enterprising in the 21st century. We're drawing on this framework throughout the whitepaper.

Check out the key insights, show notes and transcript on our Medium publication.

July 23

23 July 2020: the Future of Platform-Ecosystem Thinking: A Sense-Making session

On 23 July, we hosted a one-day online event to collectively understand the emerging challenges and new possibilities of building scalable platform strategies and ecosystemic organizations for a rapidly changing world.

In this event, based on the research leading to our upcoming Whitepaper New Foundations of Platform-Ecosystem Thinking, we shared insights into the evolving landscape of organizing and how to play the right role in the business ecosystems unfolding, while embracing governance and value-creation models that ensure whole-system development.

Check out all the video recordings here: platformdesigntoolkit.com/event-july23

November 20

Final release: New Foundations of Platform-Ecosystem Thinking Whitepaper

Our whitepaper was released on November 2020! To stay tuned for future updates on new tools, events and more, sign up for news in the further up on this page: platformdesigntoolkit.com/new-whitepaper

Watch the latest sense-making session

Check out our 23rd of July full day sense-making session

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    • The Platform Opportunity Exploration Guide v 0.1
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  • thinking
    • Videos & Webinars
    • Podcast
    • Whitepaper: New Foundations
    • Sensemaking Event Videos
  • trainings
    • Learn Platform Design Toolkit
    • Haier’s Rendanheyi Masterclass
  • services
  • newsletter
  • about us
  • get in touch