The Messenger: Why create ecosystems?

Humans have created innumerable organizational forms to deal with their problems. We have created corporations, sanghas, kingdoms, clubs, professional societies, universities, governments, parties, associations, unions and many many other collectives.

Where do ecosystems fit into this profusion?

We can’t answer this question directly, for there aren’t enough ecosystems for us to figure out the conditions under which people have created ecosystems to solve problems, but we can hazard some guesses.

But first, let’s notice that there’s a time and place for almost every institutional form, and some are:

1. Long lasting
2. Dominant in their category

For example, every geography that we call a ‘civilization’ started out as a kingdom or series of kingdoms (think: Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, India, Mesoamerica… — with the Indus Valley a potential exception). For five thousand years kingship was the preferred form of rule. There were still republics here and there and of course, tribes of various forms, but most humans were ruled by kings.

And then they were gone, just like that.?

Today’s world is mostly ruled by nation states and corporations and they are capable of doing some things really well: public education for nation states and product development for corporations. But there are many problems that don’t fit into the governmental and corporate form, and wicked problems typically fall in that category.

Consider something like livelihoods: government schemes can make a difference, but it’s hard for the government (outside of a completely planned economy) to predict where the jobs will be in the future. Corporations can be smarter about investing in upcoming opportunities, but no single corporation can span all the jobs there are to be done. An ecosystem approach can succeed by being simultaneously adaptive - noticing where no opportunities are opening up and having long-term interests, so that we invest in people’ capacity to learn and grow and continue offering their skills and experiences to the ecosystem as a whole.

This is not to say the government and corporations shouldn’t be part of the livelihoods ecosystem, but the focus shifts away from individual entities (however large, as governments tend to be) to the systems’ capacity to respond to changes in the world while continuing to invest in common resources accessible by everyone.?

Such livelihood ecosystems have emerged organically: the most famous example being Silicon Valley. The concentration of expertise, funding, startups, large companies and farsighted government policy has made SV the tech capital of the world. You never know whom you’re going to meet in a cafe in Palo Alto or what conversation you’re going to overhear that will tell you where opportunities are coming by. It’s the informal circulation of people, money and ideas (backed by the State of California’s law that prevents no-compete contracts) that forms the infrastructure of SV.

How can we make this happen in other places and other problems?

Ecosystems and governments have one thing in common: risk mitigation. Both can assure you that you will never be destitute. Ecosystems and corporations have a different thing in common: opportunity. Both can be good at spotting new opportunities and benefiting from them. Being simultaneously resilient and risk taking is hard and we believe only ecosystems can foster both at once.?

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