Boundaryless Conversations Podcast

Once businesses recognize that they are staging experiences, not delivering services, they can gain much more economic value by leveraging on the time and attention of their guests.

What we were curious to talk to Peter about was the concept of “platform talent” and what companies are looking for when it comes to recruiting leaders in platform strategy and development.

In this episode we have the pleasure of introducing a very interesting academic voice, Alicia Hennig, Associate Professor of Business Ethics.   Her research focuses on Chinese philosophy and its application in organisations in the context of values, ethics and innovation. Working with Chinese as well as foreign companies in China, she continues to promote a better understanding of Chinese culture and thinking.  This conversation with Alicia was very crucial to explore the embracing of  “embeddedness” (or entanglement). It’s about the critical need for organizations to see themselves as connected to the world they exist within. It turns out that Chinese philosophies, especially Daoism, are very much based on this concept of embeddedness. Daoism can provide Chinese management thinking with mindsets that seem to be rare in most of Western cultural traditions, and that may be more apt for a time of systemic shift. We also talk about the paradox between globalisation, technological progress and contextual, indigenous approaches to management - in relation with embeddedness. Will China’s next generation of managers resist the universalising power of technology, considering how the country has leap-frogged in recent decades?  By not striving for coherence like most Western philosophies, perhaps Chinese thinking really is more resilient to such forces and can more easily provide a platform for evolution in management, as stories like that of Haier seem to demonstrate.  Alicia also talks passionately about the role of education everywhere in the world to showcase the richness of philosophies, wishing that more universities and business schools would diversify their curriculum to include Chinese, but also Indian, African and other philosophical traditions. It’s indeed a shared passion that we want to continue to explore with her in the coming months.  Remember that you can find the show notes and transcripts from all our episodes on our  Medium publication: https://medium.com/@Boundaryless_/62cbb75fce0f?source=friends_link&sk=ed34750fd83cea1009ad319b41c8fd2d    To find out more about Alicia’s work: > Website: www.newvirtues.com > LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alicia-hennig/  Other references and mentions: > Alicia Henning, Daoism in Management, 2017: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40926-015-0024-4 > Laozi, Tao Te Ching: https://www.amazon.com/Lao-Tzu-Ching-about-Power/dp/1611807247 (here in Ursula K. Le Guin’s edition) > Zhuangzi, Zhuangzi: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zhuangzi-Essential-Translations-Traditional-Commentaries/dp/0872209113/    > Explore novels by Yu Hua, Mo Yan, Yan Lianke, Liao Yiwu and Zhang Lijia.  > Jia Zhangke’s “Ash is Purest White”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLab19dyAVA   > Wang Xiaoshuai’s “So Long, My Son”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4I88xcwME8  > Zhang Yimou’s  “Hero”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh-gwDRjKXA   > Michael Schuman, Superpower Interrupted, 2020: https://www.amazon.com/Superpower-Interrupted-Chinese-History-World/dp/1541788346     Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at: www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/podcast  Thanks for the ad-hoc music to Liosound / Walter Mobilio. Find his portfolio here: www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/music  Recorded on 18 September 2020.

We’re excited to have a legend from the platform thinking space Sangeet Paul Choudary, where we explore his fascinating journey from the micro level to macro when analysing the platform economy.

In this episode, we have our two dear guests Lisa Gansky — the eternal entrepreneur, great thinker and our long term advisor — and Bill Fischer, professor at IMD in Lausanne with whom we’ve developed the very first Rendanheyi Masterclass based on Haier’s revolutionary organisational model and a partner in our long term research on the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Enabling Organization. In our conversation, we wanted to pick their brains on the key theses emerging from the research for our upcoming 2020 Whitepaper, such as acknowledging marketplace pervasiveness, seeing a systemic shift happening towards health and redrawing the human development thesis to reverse the trend that machine development has long outpaced human development. Following an initial framing, Bill and Lisa take turns in providing amazing reflections on where the world seems to be headed, from an organisational, systems and cultural perspective and related to business ecosystems and innovation. Remember that you can find the show notes and transcripts from all our episodes on our Medium publication.    Here are some important links from the conversation: See the previous Podcast episodes with Lisa and Bill > Checkpoint episode with Lisa Gansky: Ecosystems - between the “no more” and the “not yet”,  https://stories.platformdesigntoolkit.com/checkpoint-episode-with-lisa-gansky-ecosystems-between-the-no-more-and-the-not-yet-c183d21257c4 > Leadership as Architecting: Transforming Organisations into Thriving Ecosystems — with Bill Fischer. https://stories.platformdesigntoolkit.com/leadership-as-architecting-transforming-organisations-into-thriving-ecosystems-7-4af8dd0cf06c   Other references and mentions: > Warren Bennis, 1998. The Temporary Society: What is Happening to Business and Family Life in America Under the Impact of Accelerating Change. https://www.amazon.com/Temporary-Society-Happening-Accelerating-Management/dp/0787943312   > Structural Shifts podcast by Aperture Hub, with Rita Gunther McGrath, Seeing Around Corners (#19): https://medium.com/aperture-hub/seeing-around-corners-19-ec64b2260337 > Tessy Britton, “Universal Basic Everything” - .creating essential infrastructure for post Covid 19 neighbourhoods. https://medium.com/@TessyBritton/universal-basic-everything-f149afc4cef1 > Simone Cicero,  “An Entrepreneurial, Ecosystem Enabling Organization - What’s emerging from understanding Haier Group”. https://stories.platformdesigntoolkit.com/an-entrepreneurial-ecosystem-enabling-organization-c35eaf5acd9c Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/podcast   Thanks for the ad-hoc music to Liosound / Walter Mobilio. Find his portfolio here: www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/music   Recorded on July 1st 2020

In this episode, we have a conversation with John Bunch, Lead Organizational Designer and Adviser to the CEO Tony Hsieh at Zappos. John joined Zappos.com in 2009 as a Software Developer and moved on to lead the Public API team. John was the Implementation Lead during Zappos’ shift to Holacracy and self-organization. Coming out of the rollout of Holacracy, John transitioned to leading internal infrastructure and systems design. In the conversation, we talk about how Zappos - through the application of Holacracy and marked-based dynamics - is becoming a thriving entrepreneurial organization. We use the city as a metaphor for the high diversity, high productivity organisation that Zappos strives to be, based on shared enabling services and micro-enterprising.  We also explore the concept of the “triangle of accountability” that guides the organizational development and the specific hiring process that helps make sure that people who join the company are aligned with the values and ways of working applied in Zappos. Remember that you can find the show notes and transcripts from all our episodes on our Medium publication.  https://medium.com/@meedabyte/a2aaa916663e?source=friends_link&sk=3c1f7e1c2614731316fb0700295f982a Here are some important links from the conversation: Find out more about John’s work > LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-bunch/ > Zappos: https://www.zappos.com/ > Zappos Expertise: https://expertise.zappos.com/ Other references and mentions: > Tony Hsieh, Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose.  https://www.amazon.com/Delivering-Happiness-Profits-Passion-Purpose/dp/0446576220 > Zappos Adaptive: https://www.zappos.com/e/adaptive > Nassim Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder, https://www.amazon.com/Delivering-Happiness-Profits-Passion-Purpose/dp/0446576220 Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/podcast Thanks for the ad-hoc music to Liosound / Walter Mobilio. Find his portfolio here: www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/music Recorded on June 11th 2020

Today we’re speaking to Jeremiah Owyang, founding partner of the San Francisco based research firm Kaleido Insights, where he focuses on how disruptive technologies—such as social media, collaborative economy, autonomous world, blockchain and more— impact the relevance of corporations.  Jeremiah is well recognized by both the tech industry and the media for his grounded approach to deriving insights through rigorous research.and is frequently quoted in top-tier publications, has given a TED talk and was featured in the “Who’s Who” in the Silicon Valley Business Journal. His Twitter feed was named one of the top feeds by Time. He is also the Founder of Crowd Companies, an innovation club for Fortune 500 companies. In our conversation with Jeremiah, we explore some of the pre-existing conditions in the world - always through a tech lens - that have been amplified by the pandemic and other recent disruptive events, leading to some sort of awakening in Silicon Valley about the moral duties of tech companies and more in general what companies are actually supposed to produce for the world.  Remember that you can find the show notes and transcripts from all our episodes on our Medium publication. https://medium.com/@meedabyte/4142f4870d14?source=friends_link&sk=c285582c50ac503b4ae7005a14d8e4d9  Here are some important links from the conversation Find out more about Jeremiah’s work: > Jeremiah’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jowyang > Kaleido Insights, “Applying Covid-19 Urgencies to Kaleido Insights’ Five Research Themes”: https://www.kaleidoinsights.com/applying-covid-19-urgencies-to-kaleido-insights-five-research-themes/ Other references and mentions: > The Verge, “Amazon bans police from using its facial recognition technology for the next year”: https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/10/21287101/amazon-rekognition-facial-recognition-police-ban-one-year-ai-racial-bias  > Ben Evans, presentation at the WEF 2020 and an update June 2020: https://www.ben-evans.com/presentations > Participatory City, http://www.participatorycity.org/the-illustrated-guide > Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture:  https://www.amazon.com/Unsettling-America-Culture-Agriculture/dp/0871568772 > Reporting 3.0: https://www.r3-0.org/ > Wisdo: https://wisdo.com/index.html > Clubhouse: https://www.joinclubhouse.com/, https://www.wired.com/story/what-is-clubhouse-why-does-silicon-valley-care/   Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/podcast Thanks for the ad-hoc music to Liosound / Walter Mobilio. Find his portfolio here: www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/music Recorded on June 19th 2020

In this episode we have two leading platform thinkers on the show: Marshall Van Alstyne, Questrom Chair Professor at Boston University and Geoffrey Parker, professor of engineering at the Thayer School of Dartmouth College. They are both visiting scholars at the MIT Initiative for the Digital Economy and co-chair the annual MIT Platform Summit (see references below) Marshall Van Alstyne and Geoffrey Parker - together with Sangeet Choudary - are the authors of Platform Revolution: How Networked Markets Are Transforming the Economy - and How to Make Them Work for You, from 2016. As originators of the concept of the inverted firm, they were further joint winners of the Thinkers50 2019 Digital Thinking Award.  In this conversation, we talk about what democratising access to data means for the ability of players in a platform-ecosystem context to innovate and how regulation should be conceived participatory and ex ante. With creating human value as the North star, Marshall and Geoffrey ponder that we might want to see the creation of a Magna Carta of citizens rights for how we should be able to operate and influence on powerful platforms. Remember that you can find the show notes and transcripts from all our episodes on our own Medium publication.    Here are some important links from the conversation:   Find out more about Marshall and Geoffrey’s work > Geoffrey G. Parker, Marshall W. Van Alstyne, Sangeet Paul Choudary, Platform Revolution: How Networked Markets Are Transforming the Economy and How to Make Them Work for You, 2016. https://www.amazon.com/Platform-Revolution-Networked-Markets-Transforming/dp/0393249131 > MIT Platform Strategy Summit, 2020 edition taking place virtually on 8 July: http://ide.mit.edu/events/2020-mit-platform-strategy-summit > Platform Revolution - Offers an operator's manual for building platforms (easy read)  https://www.amazon.com/Platform-Revolution-Networked-Markets-Transforming/dp/0393354350/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1591806248&sr=1-1 > Digital Platforms & Antitrust - Categorizes the harms from platforms, critiques existing solutions, and offers one path forward (easy read).  https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3608397 > Pipelines, Platforms & New The Rules of Strategy - Tells how strategy differs from products to platforms (Harvard Business Review "Must Read" - easy read).  https://hbr.org/2016/04/pipelines-platforms-and-the-new-rules-of-strategy > Platform Ecosystems: How Developers Invert the Firm - Provides a proof that platforms become "inverted firms," moving production from inside to outside, once network effects become large enough (MISQ Best Paper - hard read). https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2861574  > The Social Efficiency of Fairness - Provides proof that treating people fairly increases rates of innovation (mimeo - hard read)  https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1514137   Other mentions and references >  Simon Wardley on the Innovate-Leverage-Componentize (ILC) cycle.  Part I: https://blog.gardeviance.org/2014/03/understanding-ecosystems-part-i-of-ii.html;  Part II: https://blog.gardeviance.org/2015/08/on-platforms-and-ecosystems.html > Simone Cicero, “Long Tails, Aggregators & Infrastructures”: https://stories.platformdesigntoolkit.com/long-tails-aggregators-infrastructures-bdf84e32531d > Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, “5 Economists Redefining… Everything. Oh Yes, And They’re Women”. Mariana Mazzucato on the role of government investment in early innovations: https://www-forbes-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.forbes.com/sites/avivahwittenbergcox/2020/05/31/5-economists-redefining-everything--oh-yes-and-theyre-women/amp/   Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/podcast   Thanks for the ad-hoc music to Liosound / Walter Mobilio. Find his portfolio here: www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/music   Recorded on June 10th 2020

In this episode, we’re speaking to Nicolas Colin, co-founder & director of The Family, a pan-European investment firm founded in 2013 and headquartered in London. Nicolas publishes an extremely valuable newsletter European Straits about entrepreneurship, finance, strategy and policy, with a European perspective. He’s also the author of three books, one of which is Hedge: A Greater Safety Net for the Entrepreneurial Age and member of the board of directors at Radio France, and a former commissioner at CNIL (the French personal data protection authority). Nicolas also contributes to several other outlets, such as co-host at Nouveau Départ with his wife Laetitia Vitaud (in French), and as a columnist at Sifted.    In this conversation, we try to unpack why Nicolas thinks the current crisis is going to accelerate the transition to what he has recently called a more “mature entrepreneurial economy” and what he means with the Entrepreneurial Age is, a concept he uses to describe the networked computing-powered world where individuals - or users - are more important than having fixed assets on a balance sheet.  We also talk about the balance between building organizations based on attracting outsiders and the need to be resilient to sudden drops in users, which some tech companies seem to get wrong.   Remember that you can find the show notes and transcripts from all our episodes on our  Medium publication.    To find out more about Nicolas Colin’s work: > Twitter: https://twitter.com/Nicolas_Colin > Newsletter: https://europeanstraits.substack.com/ > Nicolas Colin (2018). Hedge: A Greater Safety Net for the Entrepreneurial Age: https://www.amazon.com/Hedge-Greater-Safety-Net-Entrepreneurial/dp/1718917082   Other references and mentions: > Structural Shifts podcast by Aperture, “Previewing the post-pandemic World”, with Nicolas Colin, Laetitia Vitaud and Ian Charles Stewart: https://medium.com/aperture-hub/previewing-the-post-pandemic-world-17-7be38279c2c7 > Babak Nivi coined the term “Entrepreneurial Age” (2013): https://venturehacks.com/the-entrepreneurial-age > Carlota Perez’ work on technological revolutions: http://www.carlotaperez.org/ > Balaji Srinivasan On The Argument For Decentralization - Part 1, Pomp Podcast #295: https://youtu.be/SU6H-5kA0FA  > Fernand Braudel, on Civilisation and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century, in 3 volumes: https://www.amazon.com/Civilization-Capitalism-15th-18th-Century-Vol/dp/0520081145: > Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/podcast > Thanks for the ad-hoc music to Liosound / Walter Mobilio. Find his portfolio here: www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/music Recorded on May 29th 2020

In this episode, we’re having a boundaryless conversation with Joe Norman, a complex systems scientist researching systemic risk and precaution in large-scale systems. Joe explores strategies for uncertainty, complex systems engineering, pattern formation in biological and social systems. Joe’s work brings amazing insights to creating new organizational development models that could be better equipped to deal with the asymmetric risk factors that we foresee these days, in light of rising complexity of the human society and of the destabilization of its support systems.  We talk about decentralization and localism as a way to deflate such risks while changing the landscape of organising and influencing its salience. Joe underlines the importance of tackling challenges at the appropriate scale, applying a multi-scale variety lens. Our conversation further points in the direction of systemic health-embeddedness and the principle of subsidiarity and the precautionary principle as providing adequate constraints, rather than directions, for systems to evolve. Remember that you can find the show notes and transcripts from all our episodes on our Medium publication.  To find out more about Joe’s work: > Joe’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/normonics > Email: joe.w.norman@gmail.com > Website: http://jwnorman.com/ Other mentions and references: > Balaji Srinivasan On The Argument For Decentralization - Part 1, Pomp Podcast #295: https://youtu.be/SU6H-5kA0FA  > Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture:  https://www.amazon.com/Unsettling-America-Culture-Agriculture/dp/0871568772 > Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/podcast > Thanks for the ad-hoc music to Liosound / Walter Mobilio. Find his portfolio here: www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/music     Recorded on May 25th 2020