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Network Production at Systems Layer
We have been optimizing for the best policies and practices inside organizations for some time. And then how to connect between organizations and those outside of it, the relational layer. Part of the next phase is about building capacity at the systemic layers. How do we build capacities in ecosystems?
Network Production in Decko
This concept focuses on the productivity gains possible by moving from factory production to network production.
Factory production allowed fewer people to create more physical goods at a cheaper price than craft production. In craft production, one person makes all the parts of an object, such a table or tshirt. Factory production, each worker does one part of the production over and over but the process is composed into a line that results in a complete product. Factory production focuses on quality control, standardization, and automation. Network production can leverage factory production but it adds the uniqueness factor back in. A network can produce an infinite variety. And given people's desire for identity and uniqueness, it can outperform factory production.
Network production looks like Threadless, a tshirt company that has a network of designers. The physical shirts can be made in a factory process, but the design that makes them interesting is created by a network of creatives. We can also think of aspects of the sharing economy as network production even though it is less about physical goods. It too uses uniqueness as a winning edge. Airbnb (for all the gripes we may have about community impacts and exploited sharers) beat out hotels in short order by allowing people to charge for sharing their property. Networks do a better job of creating, producing, and delivering unique objects and experiences to those that desire them.
Just as factory production didn't fully replace craft production, network production will not eliminate the need for some factory production. But it may help limit it to only that which does it best (where best is defined by the current ethical and cultural preference).
I think a lot about network production, but often from different angles. I marvel at the shift in organizations as part of the Social Era, where more organizations leverage resources, including people and their creativity, without keeping them inside the firm boundary of the company. I am amazed by the work Herman Wagter has shared with me from Ton Van Asseldonk with insights into the math of productivity or the need to be only a tad bit more complex than the challenge or competition.
And I am astounded and delighted by the work that Cameron Burgess has taken on with Billions to Trillions. We might say that it goes beyond network production to network markets, creating the bazaar for funders to loosely coordinate in addressing major challenges that none could do alone while also creating a market for actors to come together to be rewarded for swarming on the challenge. Nobody can fund the entirety of the water issues or other millenium development goals, but together, in a distributed system with adequate reliability, we might do it together.
I feel inspired.
Network Production at Systems Layer
We have been optimizing for the best policies and practices inside organizations for some time. And then how to connect between organizations and those outside of it, the relational layer. Part of the next phase is about building capacity at the systemic layers. How do we build capacities in ecosystems?
Network Production in Decko
This concept focuses on the productivity gains possible by moving from factory production to network production.
Factory production allowed fewer people to create more physical goods at a cheaper price than craft production. In craft production, one person makes all the parts of an object, such a table or tshirt. Factory production, each worker does one part of the production over and over but the process is composed into a line that results in a complete product. Factory production focuses on quality control, standardization, and automation. Network production can leverage factory production but it adds the uniqueness factor back in. A network can produce an infinite variety. And given people's desire for identity and uniqueness, it can outperform factory production.
Network production looks like Threadless, a tshirt company that has a network of designers. The physical shirts can be made in a factory process, but the design that makes them interesting is created by a network of creatives. We can also think of aspects of the sharing economy as network production even though it is less about physical goods. It too uses uniqueness as a winning edge. Airbnb (for all the gripes we may have about community impacts and exploited sharers) beat out hotels in short order by allowing people to charge for sharing their property. Networks do a better job of creating, producing, and delivering unique objects and experiences to those that desire them.
Just as factory production didn't fully replace craft production, network production will not eliminate the need for some factory production. But it may help limit it to only that which does it best (where best is defined by the current ethical and cultural preference).
I think a lot about network production, but often from different angles. I marvel at the shift in organizations as part of the Social Era, where more organizations leverage resources, including people and their creativity, without keeping them inside the firm boundary of the company. I am amazed by the work Herman Wagter has shared with me from Ton Van Asseldonk with insights into the math of productivity or the need to be only a tad bit more complex than the challenge or competition.
And I am astounded and delighted by the work that Cameron Burgess has taken on with Billions to Trillions. We might say that it goes beyond network production to network markets, creating the bazaar for funders to loosely coordinate in addressing major challenges that none could do alone while also creating a market for actors to come together to be rewarded for swarming on the challenge. Nobody can fund the entirety of the water issues or other millenium development goals, but together, in a distributed system with adequate reliability, we might do it together.
I feel inspired.