Our research has spanned a wide range of industries across all sectors, looking for examples of organizations that manage their resources in ways that are in direct contrast to the dominant silo paradigm. From a diverse set of examples that include both digital and physical and that cover experiences, offerings and organizations, we have identified seven core principles that flow based designs have in common.

It turns out that living systems offer up an alternative model to silos, one that is based not on accumulating and defending stocks of essential resources but instead on the continuous movement, or flow, of those resources across and throughout those systems.

A new series on designing for Flow. This first piece revisits the topic of Silos to provide context for an extended discussion of Flows over the next several posts, going into a level of detail I haven’t covered here before.

Can the study of Invasive Species tell us anything about Startup organizations and their founders?

When you hear that prime numbers are randomly situated through the universe of numbers, you might reasonably assume that they can be found more or less anywhere in that universe. But that’s not entirely true. There are actually places where they can and cannot be. Believe it or not, prime numbers stay in their lanes. They follow the rules.

One of the things we’re all learning to say nowadays is that “we’re putting the customer at the center of our company”. The idea is that where previously we focused on operational excellence we’re now focused on the customer. But it makes two big assumptions: The first is that we get to decide where customers should be, not them. The second is that our centers are the most important and desirable places to be. I’m not so sure.