Mapping Thematic Space: The “Strategy” thematic space

Published in

CALL4

23 min readFeb 4, 2022

Strategic Thinking, Strategic Discourse, Strategic Acting, and Strategic Awareness

This article is part of the Slow Cognition project and its focus is Thematic Space and Developing Tacit Knowledge. I have introduced the concept of Thematic Space and discussed related ideas in the following articles:

On Jan 29, 2022, a short version of this article was originally published on Linkedin.

This week my mind is attracted to the “Strategy” thematic space. There are many clues about “Strategy”.

I had several virtual meetings about the “Strategy” topic. On Jan 28, 2022, I introduced my newest idea “the Life Strategy framework” which is expanded from “Anticipatory Activity System” to a friend.
I also talked about my Knowledge Curation project with a member of the Strategic Doing community.
I also read Ed Morrison’s book about Strategic Doing.

Finally, I got a spark that guides me to use my own integrated framework to curate the landscape of my “Strategy” thematic space.

Architecture > Strategic Thinking
Relevance > Strategic Discourse
Activity > Strategic Acting
Opportunity > Strategic Awareness

Scholars and researchers tend to use “Strategic content” and “Strategic process” to define their focuses. My framework is only for my “Strategy” thematic space which is about my own tacit knowledge.

1. A Personal Epistemological Framework
2. “Strategy” as a Theme
3. Strategy as Net
4. The “Life Strategy” Project
5. Jan 29: A Spark
6. From Thematic Spaces to Practical Perspectives
7. Architecture > Strategic Thinking
8. Relevance > Strategic Discourse
9. Activity > Strategic Acting
10. Opportunity > Strategic Awareness

1. A Personal Epistemological Framework

I have over twenty years of work experience which can be divided into three stages: the creative stage, the strategic stage, and the innovative stage. At the creative stage, I worked for the advertising and media industry as a creative copywriter and designer. At the strategic state, I worked for pre-IPO stage enterprises as a business strategist and fundraising consultant. At the innovative stage, I worked on making brand new digital tools and platforms as a researcher and designer.

Before 2014, I spent most of my spare time on digital nonprofit communities as a digital activist. From 2014 to 2015, I transformed my focus from nonprofit activities to theoretical learning. Since then, I have been spending most of my spare time learning ecological psychology, creativity research, and other related subjects. You can find more details from a previous article: D as Diagramming: Challenge as Opportunity.

In July 2017, I designed a diagram to curate four theoretical perspectives together. The diagram below is an updated version of the 2017 diagram. While the new version retains the basic four conceptual spaces and the visual layouts, the major change is the names of the two conceptual spaces. The “Relevance” area was named “Interface” in the old version while the “Opportunity” area was named “Affordance” in the old version.

I considered the above diagram as an integrated framework for understanding “Mind, Meaning, and Experience”.

It is an epistemological framework for curating my learning outcome and reflecting on my work experiences. As a lifelong thinker, I was satisfied with this practical framework as an outcome in the middle of 2017. Basically, the four thematic spaces refer to four ways of connecting theory and practice.

The “Architecture” thematic space connects my work experiences in Information Architecture and my learning of cognitive science.
The “Relevance” thematic space connects my work experiences in advertising/media/marketing and my learning of semiotics/communication study/culture study.
The “Opportunity” thematic space connects my life experience in my kids’ childhood and my learning of ecological psychology’s Affordance theory and my own work the Ecological Practice approach which was born in 2018.
The “Activity” thematic space connects my work experience with various domains and my learning of Activity Theory.

The above diagram is not a traditional 2x2 matrix. The major difference between my diagram and the 2x2 matrix is the process of making diagrams. For the traditional 2x2 matrix, people define 2 dimensions first, then they generate four conceptual spaces with two values of each dimension. For my diagram, I have four conceptual spaces first, then I find similarities and differences between these four conceptual spaces. In other words, you can’t generate these four conceptual spaces by calculating dimensions from my diagram. For example, you can’t generate “Opportunity” from “Self, Concrete, Rational, Dynamic”.

In fact, there are two hidden dimensions behind my diagram: Situational and Social.

Situational: Abstract v.s. Concrete
Social: Self v.s. Other

The path of my learning journey started from individual cognitive psychology which is located in the “Architecture” thematic space and expanded to other areas. Though ecological psychology (Affordance theory) focuses on concrete environments, it remains at the individual analysis level.

The “Activity” thematic space refers to Activity Theory and Social Practice Theories in general. Its unit of analysis is not individual behavior, it is not macro social structure or cultural meaning either. Since 2001, a group of philosophers, sociologists, and scientists have rediscovered the practice perspective and used it as a lens to explore and examine the role of practices in human activity. Researchers called it The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory. As Schatzki pointed out, “there is no unified practice approach”(2001, p.2). Davide Nicolini developed a toolkit to introduce six different ways of theorizing practice in his 2013 book Practice Theory, Work, & Organization. Activity Theory is considered one of six social practice theoretical approaches.

The “Relevance” thematic space refers to abstract cultural meanings between interpersonal interactions, group activities, and large social movements. It goes beyond the dynamic situational activities and focuses on stable common sense, general cultural significance, signs, symbols, and collective social representations.

This epistemological framework doesn’t want to create one theoretical approach, but just curate my mind in a visualized order. Each visual area refers to a thematic space. Each thematic space refers to a group of theoretical approaches. In this way, I can easily check the landscape of my learning journey in order to conduct a mapping process of my own epistemic development.

You can find more details about the framework in an old article: The Mind as Play Metaphor. I also applied the framework to discuss Diagramming and Tacit Knowledge:

As a Personal Epistemological Framework, the integrated framework can generate various practical perspectives on different topics.

2. “Strategy” as a Theme

I was an enthusiast of business management and strategy books many years ago during the first stage of my career. I was trained as a mechanical engineer at school, however, my passion was creative design, writing, and communication. After I graduated, I worked in an electric factory for one year and found a job in a local advertising firm in 1994. From 1994 to 1999, the business management and strategy books became my favorite themes. I applied myself diligently to reading textbooks about business and strategy, MBA books, and Business Weekly.

In 2000, I changed my career direction and moved to the VC/Pre-IPO domain. I followed a group of private investors who were the owners of an advertising firm I worked for. The group invested in companies in mainland China, Hong Kong, and the U.S. After investors invested the first round of funds in start-ups, I helped the start-ups raise the following rounds of funds from venture capital firms and then raise funds from public markets through IPOs in Hong Kong or the U.S. At this stage, I worked as a bridge between private investors and the owners of start-ups. Also, as an authorized representative of start-ups, I acted as a principal channel of communication with professional parties, including sponsors, financial advisors, and local and overseas lawyers, auditors, and surveyors. I also assisted the CEOs of start-ups in strategic planning, brand management, and investor relations during the process. I realized my reading of business strategy books during the first stage was really helpful for the second stage of my career.

In 2020, I wrote a long file about John Hagel’s books with the title Net as Strategy. Now I call it Strategy as Net. This private file is also part of my “Strategy” thematic space.

3. Strategy as Net

I am a big fan of John Hagel who is a famous author of strategic thinking books such as Net Gain (1997), Net Worth (1999), The Power of Pull (2010), and The Journey Beyond Fear (2021).

In 2012 May, I was invited to speak at the China Education Symposium which is a student-run organization officially recognized by The Harvard Graduate School of Education. At that conference, I met a Chinese graduate who came from New York City, later we found FOUR Institute to help youth people to learn the power of pull. We called one’s last two years of college and the first two years of his/her career as the “new-FOUR-year”. We aimed to inspire youth undergoing the “new-FOUR-year” period to adopt an open mindset and raise awareness of their life, work, learning, and thinking in order to have more control of their own life and reach career paths that fit them more. We launched the project under the XinSiNian brand which means “new-FOUR-year” in Chinese. The idea and the project grew quickly through Chinese social media. However, the project slowed down in 2013 since my second son was born in June 2013. I failed in building a new team for the project.

In 2012, I read John Hagel’s The Power of Pull. I was so excited about the idea of Pull and wrote about it several times for the FOUR project. I realized the mission of the FOUR project is just teaching the mindset and skills of Pull for Chinese youth. I had a feeling that the traditional culture of China doesn’t encourage the Pull. Though The Power of Pull was about business thinking, I adopted it from the perspective of personal development.

In fact, I found most of John Hagel’s writings can be understood from the perspective of social ecology. Peter Drucker once claimed that he is a social ecologist. In the context of management and business strategy, the social ecology points to the relationship between business/institution and consumer/actor. Net Gain is about virtual communities. As he mentions, “People are drawn to virtual communities because they provide an engaging environment in which to connect with other people — sometimes only once, but more often in an ongoing series of interactions that create an atmosphere of trust and real insight. But what is the basis of this interaction? It is essentially based on people’s desire to meet four basic needs: interest, relationship, fantasy, and transaction.” (Net Gain, p.18) Net Worth goes deep on the relationship between “business — information — customer”, he said, “The Internet instead is a powerful platform for connecting people or businesses with each other, enriched and enhanced by relevant information. Intermediaries play a significant role in helping connect people and in conveniently providing the information that helps enrich these relationships.” (Net Worth, p.xii)

From the perspective of business owners, any change in any relationship between any two sides will lead to new value creations. These changes may be driven by technological development. However, any relationship is developed in concrete activities with or without mediated things within a particular environment. Thus, businesses can invent new relationship-based value creations from three basic elements and their combinations: activities, mediated things, and the environment. The development of Internet technologies changes the physical environment first, then the development of Internet things such as various media formats changes the mediated things, and finally, the development of Internet practice changes the activities.

If we combine Net Gain, Net Worth, and The Power of Pull together, we can see a new paradigm of business strategy: Strategy as Net. The new paradigm is not only about the Internet but about the change in the relationship between social participants and social practices. The “Net” of “Strategy as Net” has three meanings, First, it refers to the material aspect of “net” — the internet. Second, it refers to the social aspect of the “net” — the human network. Third, it refers to the cultural aspect of the “net” — the network of mediated things.

Most important social environments are hosted by business/institutions, thus, the activities of the business are not only about the object and profit of the enterprise but also about the social environment they created for people. Together, businesses/institutions and consumers/actors work collaboratively to maintain and change social practices.

I also suggested the notion of “Net Workforce” as a response to the newest development of the business and the Internet from the perspective of Strategy as Net.

Net Gain and Net Worth build the foundation of the Strategy as Net paradigm. Net Workforce could draw out the deep meaning of the thinking.

Activity theory researchers also talk about loose coupling works, they use a theoretical concept “activity network” to discuss this type of phenomenon. ANT (actor-network theory) researchers use the theoretical concept “heterogeneous network” to discuss the “material-semiotic networks”. Clay Spinuzzi did research on a telecommunication company and used these two theories together to theorize knowledge work in telecommunications. The result was published as a book Network in 2008.

Clay’s book is an excellent sociocultural research work. However, it doesn’t focus on business strategy. I think there is a need to establish the Strategy as Net paradigm for both researchers and practitioners.

4. The “Life Strategy” Project

As mentioned in the previous article, Thematic Space: A “Strategy-as-Curation”Weekend, I am recently thinking about Life Strategy for Indie Creators.

The “Life” thematic space is a huge container for me. In the Theory field of the thematic space, I did something about it. For example:

The Lifesystem framework
Life as Activity
Life Curation
Life Theory (yes, I wrote a 160-page private document titled Life Theory in Feb 2020.)

The “Life Theory” document is both a theoretical plan and a toolkit. As a theoretical plan, it describes the position and the direction of expanding the Ecological Practice approach to a social theory. As a toolkit, it curates six frameworks together. It is the beta version of the Ecological Practice approach.

My notion of “Life Strategy” can be understood as a dialogue between my “Life” thematic space and my “Strategy” thematic space.

If we jump out of my thematic spaces, we can consider the concept of “Life Strategy” as a dialogue between the field of “Developmental Psychology” and the field of “Strategic Management”.

I called this method Double Dialogues which is a technique of the Knowledge Curation framework. The Double Dialogues method differs from Conceptual Blending because my method is about Themes and the Conceptual Blending method is about Concepts.

I am a big fan of Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner’s Conceptual Blending Theory which is an established theoretical approach in the field of cognitive linguistics.

A few years ago, I started learning cognitive linguistics and was immediately fascinated by Conceptual Metaphor and Blending. Though Conceptual Blending Theory is about linguistic concepts, Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner develop a set of diagrams to visualize their abstract theoretical ideas.

The above diagram is the basic diagram of Conceptual Blending Theory. Four circles refer to four Mental Spaces: Input Space 1, Input Space 2, Generic Space, and Blend Space. According to the authors, “Mental spaces are small conceptual packets constructed as we think and talk, for purposes of local understanding and action…A generic mental space maps onto each of the inputs and contains what the inputs have in common.” (2002, pp. 40–42) The fourth space is Blended Spaces which contain an emergent structure that is not in the inputs.

The above right diagram is a case study of Conceptual Blending. The authors use Same-sex Marriage to discuss permanent category change. According to the authors, “For ‘same-sex marriage,’ the inputs are the traditional scenario of marriage, on the one hand, and an alternative domestic scenario involving two people of the same sex, on the other. The cross-space mapping may link typical elements such as partners, common dwellings, commitment, love, sex. Selective projection then recruits additional structure from each input. For example, social recognition, wedding ceremonies, and mode of taxation are projected from the input of ‘traditional marriage,’ while same sex, absence of biologically common children, and culturally defined roles of the partners are projected from the other input.”(2002, pp.269–270)

The major difference between my method and Conceptual Blending is my method is based on Thematic Spaces while Conceptual Blending is based on Mental Spaces. Also, Conceptual Blending requires four mental spaces for the whole process of blending. For my Knowledge Curation framework, we can use Thematic Spaces as many as we want.

Moreover, the Conceptual Blending method is only about linguistic analysis because it is a theory of cognitive linguistics. The Double Dialogues method and Thematic Spaces are part of Developing Tacit Knowledge which is an activity.

The above diagram is titled the ECHO Way (v2.0) which is developed as a practical framework for Knowledge Curation and Boundary Innovation.

The core idea behind the ECHO Way (v2.0) is the above meta-diagram. Now we can consider Life (Developmental Psychology) as Container X and Strategy (Strategic Management) as Container Y.

Then, the “Life Strategy” Project is the Container Z. Our knowledge about the new concept of “Life Strategy” should be developed within the Project.

5. Jan 29: A Spark

I took the following picture at 5:09 PM, Jan 29, 2022, when I was in the parking lot of Costco with my two sons while my wife was shopping inside the store.

After casually flipping through Jordan B. Peterson’s book 12 Rules for Life for a few minutes, I put it down and started writing a list of things that happened from Jan 27 to Jan 29. See the below:

Jan 27 (morning), read Ed Morrison’s book about Strategic Doing.
Jan 27 (afternoon), used the iART framework as an example to test the canvas of “the Dialogue approach of Knowledge Curation”.
Jan 27 (night), curated “Anticipatory Activity System” and other frameworks together in order to design the first version of “Life Strategy Toolkit”.
Jan 28 (morning), talked about the “Life Strategy Toolkit” with a friend.
Jan 28 (morning), joined a webinar about Strategic Doing and Startup Ecosystem.
Jan 28 (noon), shared a post about Platform for Development on Linkedin.
Jan 28 (afternoon), designed the final version of “the Dialogue approach of Knowledge Curation”.
Jan 28 (afternoon), my iMac couldn’t turn on due to a sudden power outage.
Jan 28 (night), read printed pages about Strategic Doing and wrote some notes.
Jan 29 (morning), text-chatted with a friend about the “Anticipatory Activity System” framework.
Jan 29 (morning), went to the Apple Store.
Jan 29 (noon), replied to comments about Platform for Development on Linkedin.
Jan 29 (afternoon), went to a local library.
Jan 29 (afternoon), went to Costco.

After finishing the above list, I suddenly had the above idea about “Life Strategy”. Originally, I was busy on dealing with friends’ requests for practical suggestions about strategy. So, I framed the notion of “Life Strategy” as a practical toolkit. However, I realized that I could detach my mind from the “toolkit” and attach it to the “dialogue” which is mentioned above.

Now we can use the Thematic Space Canvas to visualize this moment.

Before: the focus of my mind is on the “Heuristics” block which belongs to the Practice Field.
After: the focus of my mind moves to the “Approaches” block which belongs to the Theory Field.
Then: the new focus led to a new project which is on the “Projects” block.

This Spark led to the following Notions:

Architecture > Strategic Thinking
Relevance > Strategic Discourse
Activity > Strategic Acting
Opportunity > Strategic Awareness

In fact, I thought about applying the epistemological framework to curate theoretical approaches to Strategy on Jan 28. However, I didn’t produce any Practical Perspective as an outcome on Jan 28.

6. From Thematic Spaces to Practical Perspectives

Practical Perspectives are part of the model of Knowledge Curation. See the diagram below.

The model presents six types of “Objects of Curating” for a knowledge curation work:

Theoretical Approaches
Conceptual Spaces (Now, it is Thematic Spaces)
Practical Perspectives
Integrated Frameworks
Operational Heuristics
Practical Phenomena

You can find more details in an old article: The Diagramming as Practice Framework.

There are three approaches to Knowledge Curation: the top-down approach, the bottom-up approach, and the dialogue approach. The above diagram is the canvas of top-down knowledge curation.

The Top-down approach has three stages:

6.1 The Objective — Subjective Curation
This stage is guided by Thematic Orientation. The goal is to build Thematic Spaces which could support long-term tacit knowledge development. The key is Epistemic Development.

6.2 The Approach — Application Curation
This stage is guided by Heuristic Orientation. The strategy is to design Intermediate Instruments which could be mediating tools for the cross-boundary activity.

6.3 The Explanation — Operation Curation
This stage is guided by Situated Orientation. The goal is to apply knowledge to real work activities. The key is understanding Double Containers: abstract containers and concrete containers.

For the “Life Strategy” project, the key is the Approach — Application curation. How can I use my epistemological framework to curate theoretical approaches to Strategy?

The following four notions are Practical Perspectives which are intermediate instruments.

Strategic Thinking
Strategic Discourse
Strategic Acting
Strategic Awareness

Once we have these Practical Perspectives, we can start the “Approach — Application” curating activity.

7. Architecture > Strategic Thinking

For the Diagramming as Practice Framework, I used the “Architecture” thematic space to generate a practical perspective: Cognitive Representation.

Cognitive Representation is a term of cognitive science. Though scientists and scholars have various understanding of cognitive science, there are two simple goals of cognitive science: 1) explain cognitive phenomena, and 2) construct artificial systems that can solve various cognitive tasks (Peter Gardenfors, 2000).

I consider “Strategic Thinking” as a practical perspective of the “Architecture” thematic space. It means we can claim that Strategy is a cognitive phenomenon. In this way, we can adopt theoretical approaches to cognitive development for discussing strategic thinking.

This perspective roughly echoes what strategic management scholars called “Strategic content”.

For “Life Strategy”, I pay attention to a person’s strategic cognitive capability. How can we help a person improve her strategic thinking competence in order to cope with life challenges?

This view echoes some of my works. For example:

Anticipatory Activity System: Strategy is a process of developing advanced predictive models in order to manage the complexity of anticipation and performance.
Curativity Theory: turning pieces into a meaning whole.

“Anticipatory Activity System” is inspired by Activity Theory and Anticipatory System Theory. My idea “Strategy as Anticipatory Activity System” is for understanding Strategy in a broad context at an abstract theoretical framework level.

A core idea of Anticipatory System Theory is the Predictive Model. According to Robert Rosen, “An anticipatory system is a natural system that contains an internal predictive model of itself and of its environment, which allows it to change state at an instant in accord with the model’s predictions pertaining to a later instant.” In contrast, a reactive system only reacts, in the present, to changes that have already occurred in the causal chain, while an anticipatory system’s present behavior involves aspects of the past, present, and future.

From the perspective of the Anticipatory Activity System, Strategy is a process of developing advanced predictive models in order to manage the complexity of anticipation and performance.

We can also learn from some cognitive theories. For example:

Reflective Mind and Mindware (Keith E. Stanovich, 2016)

The term Mindware was initially coined by the Harvard cognitive development psychologist David Perkins in the 1995 book Outsmarting IQ: The Emerging Science of Learnable Intelligence. Later, the cognitive scientist Keith E. Stanovich adopted the term for his books and his model of cognitive architecture. According to Stanovich, “The knowledge, rules, procedures, and strategies that can be retrieved and used to transform decoupled representations have been referred to as ‘mindware’…The mindware available during cognitive simulation is, in part, the product of past learning experiences.” (2016, p.34)

Source: The Rationality Quotient (2016, p.36)

Stanovich and his co-workers developed a tripartite theory of mind (see the above diagram) which is different from the popular Type 1 v.s. Type 2 model of the mind was introduced by Daniel Kahneman in his 2011 book Thinking, Fast and Slow. The tripartite theory of mind suggests that there are two types of mind for Type 2 processing: Algorithmic mind (individual differences in fluid intelligence) and Reflective mind (individual differences in thinking dispositions or cognitive styles). According to Stanovich, “Many thinking dispositions concern beliefs, belief structure, and, importantly, attitudes toward forming and changing beliefs. Other thinking dispositions that have been identified concern a person’s goals and goal hierarchy.” (2016, p.25)

Stanovich points out that there are five types of reasoning errors (2016, p.49). One of these errors is about Contaminated Mindware. The reason is very simple if we misunderstand some knowledge, rules, procedures, and strategies, this learned mindware is not original mindware.

Of course, we can find many strategic models and frameworks from strategic management scholars.

8. Relevance > Strategic Discourse

For the Diagramming as Practice Framework, I used the “Relevance” thematic space to generate a practical perspective: Cultural Significance. In fact, I developed a typology of Relevance.

We can apply the above typology of Relevance to discuss Strategy. However, in order to highlight the communication between Self and Other, I use “Strategic Discourse” as a practical perspective.

The Strategic Discourse perspective refers to the negotiation between Self and Others around the strategic relevance.

Since there are four levels of analysis, we can find various theoretical resources for discussing Strategy. For example:

A Typology of Activities (Clay Spinuzzi): Clans, Networks, Hierarchies, Markets
Relational Models Theory (Alan P. Fiske): Communal Sharing, Authority Ranking, Equality Matching, and Market Pricing.

In an old article, I used the following diagram to curate the above two models together.

The above diagram represents a basic joined the action with two people: person A (subject A) and person B (subject B). Following Activity theory’s terms, this action is part of a collective activity with a shared Object. Subject A and Subject B have their own perspectives on the Object, these perspectives may generate contradictions or consensus. For Relational Models Theory, it doesn’t have the term “object”, Fiske just directly talked about social interactions, and social relationships. Person A and Person B have their own relational models for a particular interaction. These different models might generate contradictions or consensus too.

This example is about conflicts on “division of labor” which is a term of activity theory. Now, we can say these two frameworks can work together. Spinuzzi’s typology is more about collective configurations of activity while Fiske’s framework is more about individual moral intuitions on social interaction.

At the macro level, I’d like to recommend the following theoretical approaches:

Social Representation (Serge Moscovici, 1961)
SCOT — Social Construction of Technology (Trevor Pinch & Wiebe Bijker, 1984)
Voices of the Mind: A Sociocultural Approach to Mediated Action (James V. Wertsch, 1991)
Narrative Economics (Robert J. Shiller, 2019)
Concepts: A Critical Approach (Andy Blunden, 2012)

These approaches are about building large-scale cultural meaning which is also a social discourse process. You can find more details about some of the above approaches from Platform Innovation as Concept-fit.

For Life Strategy for indie creators, I’d like to recommend my own work Themes of Practice which offers a solution for achieving a balance between individual life themes and collective cultural themes.

9. Activity > Strategic Acting

The “Activity” thematic space refers to Activity Theory, Social Practice theories, and similar theoretical approaches. The diagram below points out that there are three types of theoretical resources for the Activity Analysis project.

The Hegel-Marx-Vygotsky Activity Theories: This is the tradition of Activity Theory
The Continental Tradition
The Pragmatist Tradition

For the Diagramming as Practice Framework, I used the “Activity” thematic space to generate a practical perspective: “Mediating Instrument”(1, 2). This perspective is adopted from the Activity Theory.

For discussing Strategy, I use “Strategic Acting” as a practical perspective. And we can find some theoretical approaches:

Strategy as Practice: an activity-based approach (Paula Jarzabkowski, 2005)
Strategic Doing (Edward Morrison, 2019)
More “Strategy-as-Practice” approaches: Cambridge Handbook of Strategy as Practice (2010, 2015)

The “Strategic Acting” perspective echoes what strategic management scholars called “Strategic process”.

For Life Strategy, I’d like to recommend my own work, the Life-as-Activity approach.

In fact, the core of the Life-as-Activity approach is “Self, Other, Present, Future” which refers to the Anticipatory Activity System framework. Also, “Project” refers to Project-oriented Activity Theory, and “Theme” refers to Themes of Practice.

10. Opportunity > Strategic Awareness

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the meaning of Opportunity is an amount of time or a situation in which something can be done. When I use the term Opportunity to name a thematic space, I claim that there is an essential notion behind the theme of Opportunity: Possible Actions. This claim connects the Opportunity thematic space with the term Possible Practices and the Ecological Practical approach which is one of my theoretical works.

Possible Actions can be understood with two inseparable aspects:

a) Potentials that are offered by the environment or the situation, and
b) Capabilities, a skill, an ability, or knowledge that makes a person able to do a particular action.

The Potentials — Capabilities coupling echoes the Environment — Organisms coupling. Thus, I use this framework to curate Affordances, Opportunity, Possible Actions, and Possible Practices into one big container which is named the Opportunity thematic space.

Why don’t I directly name it the conceptual space of Affordance? The Ecological Practice approach is inspired by ecological psychology, but it also developed its own theoretical concepts such as Attachance, Supportance, Curativity, Infoniche, Lifeway/Lifeform/Lifesystem, etc. I started from the concept of Affordance and went beyond the field of visual perception. For example, the concept of Supportance is about social interactions and intersubjectivity. You can find more details from here: The Development of Ecological Practice Approach.

For discussing Strategy, the Ecological Practice Approach is not enough because it is only about micro-level analysis. So, I need to expand my Opportunity thematic space and curate other theoretical approaches into the thematic space.

An important resource about Opportunities is Entrepreneurship Research. According to Venkataraman (1997), “…entrepreneurship as a scholarly field seeks to understand how opportunities to bring into existence ‘future’ goods and services are discovered, created, and exploited, by whom, and with what consequences…At its core the field is concerned with (1) why, when and how opportunities for the creation of goods and services in the future arise in an economy;…”

Venkataraman also points out, “Cognitive conditions, incentives, and creative processing vary among individuals and these differences matter. These variables strongly influence the search for and exploitation of an opportunity, and they also influence the success of the exploitation process.”

For the D as Diagramming framework, I used “Ecological Situation” as a practical perspective (1, 2). For discussing Strategy, I use “Strategic Awareness” to refer to perceiving opportunities by sense-making on changes in environments.

In order to explain the value of the ecological practice approach, I adopt the concept of Opportunity as mediation and redefined it as formula below:

Opportunity = From a perspective (X), You (U) could do things (Y) with an object (Z).

This formula requires more details than the above two aspects. I add perspective and object to the formula.

This is a heuristic tool for connecting Theory (the ecological practice approach) and Practice (the real-life actions). In this way, I can apply the concept of Affordance and other theoretical concepts as Perspectives to the formula. You can find more details about the formula here: D as Diagramming: The Opportunity Formula.

You are most welcome to connect via the following social platforms:

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/oliverding
Twitter: https://twitter.com/oliverding
Polywork: https://www.polywork.com/oliverding
Boardle: https://www.boardle.io/users/oliver-ding