A Framework for Accelerating Innovation Through Innovation Webs

Any efforts to accelerate innovation from ideation through market saturation depend on understanding the systemic behavior occurring within and throughout this process. “Systemic” is hereby understood to describe the holistic interactions of participants assuming roles and exchanging (in-) tangible deliverables from a living systems perspective based on the axiom that innovation is a social phenomenon which can only be served and not managed. Based upon previous research at individual, group, region, nation state, federation and global levels, this paper introduces a framework of systemic variables most critical for influencing the speed of value creation for ideas traveling across the diffusion of innovation curve. These variables are derived from a series of collaboration patterns portrayed as “innovation webs” that describe the dynamics found within the innovation stages of ideation, research, socialization, market validation and commercialization. The paper delivers actionable insights enabling the acceleration of innovation in industries such as construction and provides recommendations for future action-research to mature the dependency model suggested of variables affecting the speed of innovation.