In 1997 MIT Sloan Management Review published an article titled Strategic Innovation that explains a lot of the analog-digital transformation leading up to that time. I happen to think that the time of Thomas Edison and electrification, WW II, and then the time of Steve Jobs is a period we can call Strategic Innovation 1.0 (SI 1).
One of the key features of the SI 1 terrain is that all kinds of environmental, social, and governance issues — public and commercial — were externalized from the vast wealth generated for a small segment of society; and a host of legacy corporations. Legacy management consulting firms like McKinsey & Co. actually offer advice on issues like ESG. However, they and many other SI 1 actors are very much locked into that SI 1 past. It is municipalities as Human Ecosystems that offers a lot of revolution in the form of SI 2.
StratGen SI 2 is about individuals and organizations allowing themselves to explore a truly new future: the X Factor Future. What we know is that there is a lot to leave in the past and a lot of positive value performance to achieve with establishing resilience and then sustainability as the next General Purpose Technology: being reframing the cause and effect in how strategy and innovation apply across civilization. The SI 2 Lab indeed offers a platform to inquire across multitude topics with more options available.
A different kind of environment to work out challenges, solutions, and outcomes for the places where we live — Our Municipalities — is needed. Our government leaders should have a robust yet creative version of Enterprise Project Management with a social media capability to help with unified understanding among a range of stakeholders as to the variance between actual progress, mediocrity, and absolute failure. It’s not about being excessively harsh regarding specific politicians and municipal executives leaders. It’s about High Magnitude Truth in this era of trial.
It turns out Harvard Business Review has published one of the few recent, well-done short articles on Strategic Innovation. As they say, “(organization) innovation projects tend to be only weakly related to their distinctive strategic goals, and at worst, they work against its strategy.” If the organization is a unit of government and there are many, many new initiatives every year that are more or less unaccountable to a genuine public good strategy, that adds to government mistrust by the public.
The authors cover a simple ‘framework-project basket’ concept model:
This example of Strategic Innovation is about the portfolio management aspect; which can be about an array of projects within any given department. Or; another example is departments and volunteer advisory boards within a municipal government and then the ongoing programs, initiatives, and sub projects within whatever unit.
StratGen takes the SWOT element referenced in the above article and mixes in Design Thinking with the StratGen Solution Design process; one of the key SI 2 components. Solution Design means developing projects that consistently match the overall Strategic Innovation environment.
By no means does StratGen insist on running government like a business. It’s just there seems to be a struggle for power in many US municipalities, and then at state and Federal levels. With a strong public good version of Strategic Communication that links to the ‘better angels’ version of historical America; thinking of the USA as an enterprise of connective tissue founded around connected / local Human Ecosystems starts looking good compared with Business-as-Usual strategy.
NASA, DARPA, and a fairly obscure entity called MAX.gov are examples of government and innovation ‘mashing’ together with a lot more freedom than canards about lack of government effectiveness and efficiency allow. Creating a manual for wide use in US municipal strategic innovation matters for multitude audiences, including yet beyond those in government, is an eventual StratGen co-created initiative. That’s just one of the projects we can look into in the SI 2 Lab.
But we should all be able to come up with examples of where all kinds of ideas come up that effect our municipalities as to economic development, affordability, public safety, public health, and meta resilience tests like the Anthropogenic Climate to Climate Transition and then the performance variance between expectations from 10-20 years ago and outcomes now and trending for the near future. It sounds complex; but making things more complicated with Business-as-Usual practices and dealing with complexity with the StratGen Strategic Innovation 2.0 Platform (SI 2) is where we can start seeing municipal performance take shape. Apparently Municipal Strategic Management is new territory in many respects, in spite of all the potential demand.
Strategic Innovation is a fairly old term that many with business experience and/or business education may not be aware of. Many leaders in government, nonprofits, and other sectors may not readily adopt a term that a company like Apple should be used to by now. However, it the perfect ‘all of the above’ strategic and tactical concepts home to deal with the vast range and scope of challenges, solutions, and outcomes in front of humanity today.
The SI 2 Lab is a social media platform with a difference. A Project Management capability using Podio runs in parallel to better process those challenges, solutions, and outcomes we face from the highly relevant perspective of where we live; in our municipalities. Like an innovation ecosystem, the point isn’t just more technology and corporate profits. So, the SI 2 Lab is also different. It’s a Human Ecosystem. And one would think we would be getting a performance difference as to cooperation and communication given all those opportunities to improve these days.
If leadership is about taking people to places where we wouldn’t go otherwise; where are we headed? Establishing resilience and then sustainability to make the trajectory of the next 50 years demonstrably better than the outcomes of the past 50 years won’t be an accident. Not everything that occurred since 1973 is wrong; but what are key things we could have started doing differently then with 20/20 hindsight? Working with tools like strategic foresight and open innovation to make several case study US municipalities operate differently as Human Ecosystems working in cooperation is an example of doing new’ with the StratGen Strategic Innovation 2.0 Platform (SI 2).
A big difference in classic Strategic Management and the VMOSA (Vision, Mission, Objectives, Strategies, and Action Plans) model is Strategic Foresight. The StratGen SI 2 Solution Design Maneuvering model simply yet comprehensively allows for the basic idea of past intercept performance (interventions) connecting to what needs to be created now and longer range. The inertia of trends growing in magnitude (Spread) and velocity of resource accumulation (Acceleration) connects from the past to the current state and future impact.
