Since the very beginning of CPH127 my main interest has been on the organizational side of what innovations is all about. And yes, the design discipline has a lot to offer in that respect.
I have – and a lot of the other pilots at CPH127 too – mentioned several different approaches toward how innovation can be approached.
Back in December I wrote about Open Sourced Leadership – in that post, among others, I described the “term” pull as a factor – as a mindset – for growth, innovation, value-creation, future business development.
Last weekend I read a very interesting piece “From Push to Pull – Emerging Models for Mobilizing Resources” and it stroke me that everything I meant back then is written down in that article. Not that my mind was all set, is all set, but it’s very good put and definitely a worth read.
John Hagel & John Seely Brown seems to have set the lens on a “new” model for mobilizing resources. Rather than “push”, the new approach focuses on “pull” – creating platforms that help people to mobilize appropriate resources when the need arise.
2 X John state further that pull models emerge as a response to growing uncertainty. Did anyone say complexity?
They also state that pull models treat people as networked creators, even when they are producers or customers purchasing goods and services. Did anyone say weblogs, social software or Web2.0?
Read the article – it’s a good one 
3 comments so far
Like the Gibson quote Brown and Hagel use in their paper “the future is already here, it is just unevenly distributed.” For instance, the movie business has followed a primarily pull model for decades since the old studio system fell apart (however don’t underestimate the studio system—it gave us films like Metropolis, Double Indemnity and Casablanca). Professional sports teams (at least in North America) also loosely follow a pull model for assembling winning teams.
For decades now most movies have been produced as individual projects centered on a script that temporarily pulls various independent talents together for a time and then releases them back into the pool. In terms of product development this is a highly efficient and successful model.
While I absolutely believe that pull models offer extraordinary opportunties, I’m afraid Brown and Hagel’s paper is just another attrocious example of the kind of weak hype that passes for insight these days. I won’t trouble you all my critique here, but if you need a dose of grumpy curmudgeonly ranting, I’ve posted it at:
Hi Niblette
I agree with you that it - on the surface - could look like a very quick work done by 2xJohn. Maybe it is. What I think is though, that some of the themes are of much broader importance and interest and I mean they put different words on what others already have mentioned but in a new and refreshing way.
I I godt the time I’ll try to unlock what I mean in som of my next postings and try to relate it to the article.
My respons looks almost like a big defense - it isn’t
…great response on your blog by the way
While I don’t think the article did a good job, I really do think there is something here worth unlocking. Hopefully you find the time, because pull could become a very important topic in terms of product design a strikes me as demanding a very different design mentality.