Category: Agile
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Platform Economics (3) – Scaling and Growth
As part of disappearing down the rabbit hole of platform business economics, I'm writing up the second of Chris Smith's excellent summations of the key dynamics of platform models. I'm doing this mostly for my own benefit but, as always, you are welcome to tag along and it's worth reading the original. So far I've…
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What Real Disruption Looks Like: Lemonade Insurance
Disruption is an overused word but I find the breadth as well as the depth of disruption right now to be endlessly fascinating. Logical I guess, given how horizontal the impact of digital is, and how the different ways of re-wiring markets can come from such diverse forms of innovation. Digital may change the economics of…
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Platform Economics (2) – Network Dynamics
I thought I'd write some more about some of the basic economic fundamentals of platform business models (links to the other posts in this series are collected at the bottom of this post). It's worth delving a bit more into network dynamics and why (perhaps) the shift from more traditional market dynamics and approaches can…
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Platform Economics
I've been writing a bit recently about the shift from linear pipeline to platform business models, in part to help me be more precise in how I define and describe it (to clients), and in part because I think the degree of shift in the dynamics of scalability, ownership, data, and interaction is under-appreciated (particularly in large,…
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The Red Queen’s Trap
In Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass the Red Queen's race sees Alice and the Queen running fast yet standing still. Alice decries the pointlessness of running without getting anywhere. In our country, she says, you run to get somewhere. "Now, here, you see," says the Queen, "it takes all the running you can do, to keep…
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Google Firestarters 24 – Deciphering Digital Transformation – The Event
On Wednesday evening we had the 24th Google Firestarters which took digital transformation as it's subject. The event had been well oversubscribed within 48 hours of registration opening, demonstrating the high level of interest that there is around this topic in agencies right now (this was supported by the IPA Future of Agencies research that I…
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Acronyms Really Do Suck
This 2010 memo from Elon Musk, written to the SpaceX team on the theme of tackling the burgeoning use of acronyms in the business, speaks to a long-time bugbear of mine. There was, he said at the time, a creeping tendency… 'Excessive use of made up acronyms is a significant impediment to communication and keeping…
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What Exactly IS a Platform Business Model?
'Platform' is a somewhat overused word these days and yet, as I wrote over on the agile business blog, speaks to arguably one of the most fundamental shifts in business models and thinking of the digital age. It is however, poorly defined (and often mis-used), and so it's worth dwelling on what exactly defines a platform…
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The ‘Antifragile’ Organisation
In the book I talk a lot about how, in the face of rapidly changing contexts, there is a need for greater organisational manoeuvrability and not just speed. Speed is great, but speed in the wrong direction helps no-one. Improved adaptability helps responsiveness but it can also build resilience and momentum if done right. In contrast, overly…
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Products to Service
I talk a lot to clients (and also in my book of-course) about what the shift from product orientation to experience really means. As software eats the world an ever increasing number of products are becoming services – even those that you might think are relatively distant from digital disruption like the unbundling of Procter…