Survival of the Fitting-est
The terms ‘co-development’ and ‘open innovation’ are just the latest buzz words in what is a very long trajectory in the evolutionary rebalancing of our ecosystem between the survival of the fittest and the survival of the fitting-est.
In the latest installment, a fascinating thing happened on the way to the 21st century. The big corporations, the fittest of 20th century, looked down into the entrepreneurial swamps and saw them teeming with interesting and often unrecognizable life forms. The fittest that had thrived in the ecosystem of the 20th century started to notice that something unusual was happening. Out of the entrepreneurial swamp came life forms that started to grow and disrupt their food chain. Our ecosystem is always changing, always rebalancing - mostly more slowly than the mind can see. These changes are a bit like the movement of the tectonic plates, unnoticeable until such time as change becomes visibly evident as in an earthquake or tsunami. This encourages the illusion that survival is only for the fittest - biggest and strongest and most predatory. But, I would argue, survival is really for the fitting-est - those that are right for the times. This is most evident in how the formerly fittest are fallen and forced into a dramatic change in order to survive.
However, some of the fittest continue to thrive – adapting to the changing ecosystem by adopting a semi-permeable membrane for osmosis with new elements in the ecosystem. In the first part of the 21st Century we are calling this kind of osmosis, co-development or open innovation. Co-development and open innovation permit a variety of ‘solutions’ of different concentration which are separated by corporate and entrepreneurial semi-permeable membranes to diffuse across the membranes. The energy that drives this process of becoming fitting-est is the osmotic pressure of entrepreneurial disruption - the inevitable and expected output of the entrepreneurial swamp.
Remember when Kodak had 140,000 employees – that certainly qualified them as one of the fittest. Now Kodak has 14,000 and has worked to survive by fitting itself to the changing times. The cause for change in the eco-system for Kodak was that one of the new life forms to emerge from the entrepreneurial swamp, grew into something to be reckoned with – digital technology. Radical change in size for Kodak was accompanied by radical change in their business model to permit effective osmotic diffusion with the entrepreneurial swamp.
With disruptive changes in the ecosystem came new functions for the fittest to survive fittingly in Kodak. The fitting-est fell into newly created roles to adapt such as Director, External Alliances; Chief Technology Officer, Director of Technology Brokerage and Innovation; Program Manager for Technical Fellowship; Executive Professor of Entrepreneurship; Director of Emerging and External Technologies; and Vice President of Innovation to systematically engage in the multiplicity of functions that comprise successful co-development and open innovation.
There are many osmosis/interaction models for Kodak and others of the former, or current, fittest to thrive as fitting-est including formal, structured, limited partner, sole limited partner, investment syndicate member, and acquirer models. By whatever modality, Kodak is now becoming one of the fitting-est. As a result of their adaptation, external alliances are now responsible for driving innovation in the imaging and printing sectors by creating strategic technology partnerships between Kodak and universities, privately-held companies, and other research institutions.
The players that are considered the fittest in our current ecosystem must do what players in previous and future configurations of the ecosystem have done and will do, they must always think of how they can be one of the fitting-est as to ensure that they continue to survive and thrive.