Welcome to Exponential Growth

Welcome to the first edition of Exponential Growth where I’ll share my insights and ideas on brand strategy, platform business, new technology, innovation, and staying relevant in a digital world. For more information, check out my website .

Customers want companies to be responsive and human, socially responsible and environmentally aware. They want innovation and delight delivered to a world-class standard. They want security and privacy, as well as openness and transparency. They want the feel of a small local business with the capabilities of a global giant.?

Over the last twenty years, I’ve led Vivaldi , specializing in brand and innovation strategy, innovation, and growth opportunities for companies. I’ve written several books and over 100 articles, and my latest book is The Interaction Field , which describes the emergence of a new business model of the same name. The future is going to be about creating value for everyone, and the interaction field is the only way to thrive in this environment.?

What is The Interaction Field?

Interaction field companies thrive on the participation in value creation by many different groups: the company itself, its customers, suppliers, partners, and other stakeholders—as well as other entities you might not expect to see in the mix such as competitors, observers, independent researchers, and government agencies. By participating in these interconnected groups, interaction field companies can achieve a kind of unstoppable momentum and wild expansion that I call “velocity.” It’s a new form of multidimensional, constantly accelerating, explosive and smart growth that goes far beyond the traditional measures of sales increase, profit, or market capitalization.?

Velocity sounds complicated.

But nothing is uncomplicated in this era of disruption.

If you live in New York City, as I do, you may know that if you step out of a taxi on the wrong side of the car at the wrong moment, you may step into the path of an oncoming bus and be killed instantly. Get out on the other side, and you risk an early demise from a bicyclist bombing toward you at top speed. How can a bike and a rider be just as deadly as a loaded bus that weighs ten tons or more? The bus gets you with mass. The bike gets you with velocity. Traditional companies are like a fully loaded bus. They thrive by creating enormous scale and assets, huge distribution networks, technology infrastructure, and big brands and reputations. The bike has very little mass, doesn’t care much about conventional practices in business, and has a much smaller center. But it has enormous velocity. It either rushes past its competitors or mows them down.?

Velocity—multidimensional, constantly accelerating, explosive and smart growth—is what all companies must strive for today, no matter their size or how long they’ve been in business.?

So many of the business areas where traditional companies operate are being disrupted, disaggregated, and demolished by changing consumer habits, escalating customer expectations, and the effects of technology. The old business models cannot withstand or survive the torsion of these forces, but the new interaction field companies feed on them.?

The more interactions a company can create among its participants, and the higher the quality or value of those interactions, the greater the velocity.

As velocity increases, three things happen:

1. Network effects kick in. - The product or service on offer becomes more valuable as more people contribute to it. Think Airbnb. The more Londoners offer their spare rooms or stately homes or canal barges to travelers through Airbnb, the more valuable the service becomes through greater selection, increased availability, more variety and choices.
2. Virality - As people find value in a business offering, they voluntarily become advocates for it and encourage others to join.?
3. A learning effect emerges - As the company applies human knowledge and artificial intelligence to the large amounts of data being collected in the interactions, more information is gathered and synthesized, making the product more valuable.?

When a company takes advantage of these three effects, velocity intensifies, the effects build on each other and reinforce one another, and a virtuous cycle is created, which fuels growth and ensures sustainability. As the cycle grows stronger and stronger, the value created can explode.?

Velocity created by interaction field companies is the most important business model to emerge. It is absolutely essential that traditional firms, incumbents, and start-ups build their competitive advantage on this model. Customer expectations are at an all-time high, and there is no other model that can address today’s massive and widespread shifts in consumer habits and rise in customer expectations.?

Want to learn more?

Check out my book, The Interaction Field : The Revolutionary New Way to Create Shared Value for Businesses, Customers, and Society.

Thank you for joining me for the first edition of Exponential Growth. Be sure to subscribe for future updates on brand strategy, platform business, new technology, and innovation.