Mapping Thematic Space #3: The “Platform” Thematic Space

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CALL4

16 min readJan 21, 2022

A 91-minute talk leads to a reflection

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 18, 2022, I had a 91-minute talk with a friend of mine. He is a data scientist, a programmer and a mathematical thinker. As an early adopter of Wikipedia in China, He translated Wikipedia items from English into Chinese and built the Chinese version of Wikipedia with some friends. He also wrote the first Chinese item of Wikipedia. In past years, he worked for web startups as a chief data scientist.

One year ago, we had a discussion about George Spencer-Brown’s Law of Form and Niklas Luhmann’s Social Systems theory. I also introduced my work Lifesystem Framework to him.

He recently moved to the direction of innovative mathematical thinking. This is a big decision for him. He wanted to know more about the journey of independent research and the topic of epistemic development in general. So, he called me for this talk.

I briefly introduced my journey of knowledge curation in 2021. He asked several deep questions about creative decisions behind the journey. For example, how to achieve balance between deductive method and inductive method? Though our projects belong to different fields, we are both working on high level conceptual thinking. So, we have to deal with the high level — low level switch issue.

The Deductive method is about working from the more general to the more specific. We can roughly understand it as the top-down approach. On the contrary, the Inductive method refers to the bottom-up approach.

He knew my work about the Ecological Practice approach and its development. Basically, my strategy is One Year One Step. Each year, I write a book which focuses on one core concept of the approach. Each book is designed with a structure of “concept — framework — phenomenon”. This is the top-down approach. I didn’t always follow this path. Sometimes, I work on projects first, then move to write a book or develop some new concepts and frameworks. This is the bottom-up approach.

How did I choose a phenomenon for a concept in order to write a book?
How did I choose a phenomenon for a project in order to conduct a research?
How did I choose a framework for a research project?

Actually, I did have an ideal model for responding to these challenges. Sometimes it depends on framed orientations and situational opportunities. The framed orientations refer to some directions which are framed by my theoretical concepts. For example, one task of the Ecological Practice approach is expanding Ecological Psychology from physical environments to digital environments. I applied Ecological Physical Method to discuss Twitter which is a digital platform in June 2020. However, I found the method is too hard for ordinary readers to understand. Then, I moved to search for an ideal opportunity to showcase the concept of Affordance which is the core concept of Ecological Psychology. Also, my work the Ecological Practice approach is not only about the concept of Affordance, but also about other theoretical concepts. So, I decided to adopt a framework called Infoniche which is part of the Ecological Practice approach to discuss platforms. The result is the Platform-for-Development framework (v2.0) which was published on March 31, 2021.

In April 2020, I realized that digital whiteboards are a perfect object for studying Affordance in digital environments. At that time, a friend of mine invited me to join a two-month online workshop program. I realized that was a perfect opportunity for testing the Platform-for-Development framework (v2.0). So, I started the Once Upon A Whiteboard project.

In fact, I used the term “Platform Orientation” in our talk. This term was also considered as a concept for my “Platform” thematic space.

Today I’d like to use the canvas of thematic space to reflect on the development of my “platform” thematic space.

Narrative and Reflection

I use three colors for the above mapping. Let’s start with red dots.

This reflection is inspired by the talk. So I considered two ideas as Triggers as the reflection.

As mentioned in Thematic Space: Sparks In, Statue Out, I use “Sparks” to describe the basic unit of tacit knowledge. The “Theory — Practice” dimension refers to a pair of concepts “Fact — Fiction”. Based on the notion, I discovered four types of Sparks: Imagery, Semantics, Narrative, and Affordance.

The “Narrative” Sparks are inspired by storytelling, performance, and conversation, in a situational activity. We can consider the connection between “Platform Orientation — Once Upon A Whiteboard” as a such type of spark because it was born from a conversation.

Though these two new ideas are not new, they have some values such as 1) encouraging me to reflect on my “Platform” thematic space, and 2) guiding my attention to the notion of “Platform Orientation” since I have talked about it with many friends many times. It’s time to curate related ideas together.

Though there are many ideas inside my “Platform” thematic space, I only talked about “Platform Orientation” related ideas and facts in order to answer my friend’s questions.

The Notion of Platform Orientation

The Platform-for-Development framework uses a term called “Developmental Platform”.

Though the original inspiration of the Platform for Development framework is digital platforms, I don’t want to limit the scope of the framework inside the domain of digital technological platforms. The P4D framework is expected to apply to various domains such as Startup Ecosystems, Brand and Communication, Community Engagement, Content Curation, Theoretical Traditions, Knowledge Platforms, etc.

In other words, I need an interdisciplinary definition of “Platform” for this framework. Thus, I defined a new concept called Developmental Platform in order to avoid misunderstanding.

As an interdisciplinary concept, the term Developmental Platform refers to a social environment that could strongly support adult development in various ways.

“Platform Orientation” is a term only useful for builders of Developmental Platforms. It describes a typical situation of the top-down approach. As mentioned above, the top-down approach means the path of moving from a high level of general abstract to a low level of specific concrete. For each move between two levels, the top-down approach faces many potential directions. However, the actual action only can be in one direction. I define this situation as “Platform Orientation” for the Platform-for-Development framework and Platform Ecology in general.

The notion is related to strategic thinking. On Sept 3, 2021, I published The Defining Zone and used “Orientation” for the second stage of the model.

The Orientation theme refers to the direction of the startup activity. There is a structural tension behind this theme: Potential vs. Possible.

The Potential refers to the size, growth tendency, and competition of the target market. How big is the opportunity? The Possible refers to the complexity of the activity and the competence of the team. Can we do it? This tension echoes two strategic views: Outside-in v.s. Inside-out perspective (see the table below).

Source: Strategy Synthesis (Bob De Wit and Ron Meyer, 2005, p.127)

Though this tension is common sense, I’d like to go deep with a relevant topic called Platform Orientation. On March 4, 2020, I published an article titled Social Platform Experience Design (#SocialPxD) and suggested a framework for discussing social platform design.

In the above diagram, I use social platforms as an example. If we remove “social” from the diagram, I think it works well too. To be honest, this framework just presents common sense. However, it led me to think deeply about platform building and platform development.

Later I made a distinction between Vertical Platform and Horizontal Platform. Since the former is about common sense, I am attracted by the latter. The Platform Orientation for building horizontal platforms is a very tough challenge because the idea of “Horizontal Platform” points to a variety of directions of concrete applications. At the early stage, which direction is the best direction for building the Horizontal Platform?

Finally, I built a framework to model this process. On March 24, 2021, I published an article titled Platform Innovation as Concept-fit. The article suggests the Concept-fit framework for understanding Platform Innovation. The term “Concept-fit” means six types of concepts fit together from two sides and three levels.

The Concept-fit framework is inspired by Hegel’s approach to Concept and Project-oriented Activity Theory. You can find more details in the original article.

Blue Dots and Green Dots

Now let’s move to blue dots and green dots and look at the landscape of the “Platform” thematic space.

Blue dots: all blue dots are labeled with the word “Platform”.
Green dots: all green dots are not labeled with the word “Platform”.

What is the meaning behind the simple difference between the two types of dots?

Blue dots: native members of the “Platform” thematic space.
Green dots: relative members of the “Platform” thematic space.

We can also use the “Host—Guest” metaphor to describe their relationships. The “Platform” thematic space is the Home of blue dots, but it is the Visiting field of green dots because they belong to other thematic spaces.

Native Members

I list several ideas that are related to “Platform” on the canvas. Let’s start from the Practice field:

Digital Platform
Social Platform Experience Design
Platform Creativity
Platform Curativity

Digital Platform and Social Platform Experience Design are related and they refer to my work experiences about digital platform product design and development. As a participant in digital platforms, I am both a user, a curator, and a maker. I have been working on developing several models for reflecting on digital platforms. I shared these models with my co-workers and friends. In 2019, I started sharing some models on Medium. The Social Platform Experience Design (#SocialPxD) framework is the first one.

Platform Creativity is part of my research about Creative Actions which is the original source of the name of CALL (Creative Action Learning Lab). You can find more details here.

Platform Curativity is a connection between Curativity Theory and Digital Transformation. I will discuss it later.

Other ideas are located in the Theory field of the canvas. They are about some conception creations.

Platform Ecology
Developmental Platform
Platform-ba
Platform as Container
Platform Innovation as Concept-fit

Platform Ecology refers to my vision of applying the ecological practice approach to study Platform-related social practices. I consider it as a knowledge enterprise that could lead to different projects such as the Platform-for-Development framework, Platform as Container, Platform Innovation as Concept-fit, etc.

Platform-ba is a concept for the Platform-for-Development framework. This is the starting point of Platform Ecology. To facilitate discussion, I coined the term Platform-ba (or Platformba) to describe the sum of Containee and Spilling Space for the Platform Ecology project.

For the Platform-for-Development framework and the Supportive Cycle model, I defined the Platform-ba as a platform-based sociocultural field.

The “ba” is originally found in Japanese. The concept of “ba” has been used extensively by Japanese management researcher Ikujiro Nonaka in his SECI model of knowledge creation. The platform-ba is an emergent social substance that is formed by people who have relations to a platform. While a platform is designed, managed, and controlled by its owner, its platform-ba is determined by people, the users and stakeholders of the platform. By using the new term Platform-ba, I can highlight the active aspect of platform practice which refers to people’s activity.

Platform as Container is a framework for digital transformation and platform design. It is a private file for team discussions.

Platform Innovation as Concept-fit is mentioned in the above discussion.

Developmental Platform: An Intermediate Concept

I’d like to offer more details about “Developmental Platform” because it is developed as an intermediate concept for connecting Theory and Practice. For the present discussion, this is a relevant example.

The diagram shows three containers. Container X refers to Theory while Container Y refers to Practice. Container Z refers to a boundary creative space which is named Echozone. This model is based on the Ecological Practice approach and the HERO U framework. The Echozone is a perfect space for creating brand-new intermediate concepts.

The term “Echo” of “Echozone” refers to dialogue between theory-based reflection and practice-based reflection. The theory-based reflection means adopting theoretical concepts to reflect on practical experience while the practice-based reflection means using cases from the real world to reflect on theoretical concepts. Furthermore, the most important movement within the echozone is the dialogue between two types of reflections. In other words, the Echozone is designed as a creative space with a potential hierarchical loop: reflection—dialogue.

As an intermediate concept, the function of the Developmental Platform is to inspire the theory-practice dialogue. On the theoretical side, I use “Platform” as a theoretical concept of the Ecological Practice Approach because I need it for building a triad: Network — Container — Platform. I consider the triad as a basic form of collective context. On the practical side, people use “Platform” to describe digital platforms. By using an intermediate concept such as a Developmental Platform, I expect to make room for the theory-practice dialogue. It is a little more abstract than the practical concept version of “platform,” but less abstract than the theoretical concept version of “platform”.

The above diagram also lists various ideas about “development.” Inside the Container X (Theory), we see Individual Epistemology, Cognitive Development, Mental Complexity, Social Support, and Developmental Work Research. These ideas refer to established theoretical approaches or theoretical themes. For example, Mental Complexity is the foundation of Robert Kegan’s developmental psychology while Developmental Work Research is founded by Activity Theorist Yrjö Engeström. Inside Container Y (Practice), there are several ordinary topics about adult development: Body Development, Family Development, Community Development, Resource Development, and Career Development.

At Container Z (Echozone), we see four ideas: Developmental Work Research, Idea Development, Project Development, and Career Development. I have to point out that the orientation behind the selection of these ideas is the Life-as-Activity approach which is an activity-based approach to adult development.

However, the concept of the Developmental Platform doesn’t tie to any theoretical account. It is fruitful to make distinctions between two different uses of the Developmental Platform: a concept for ontological level analysis and a concept for epistemological level analysis. As an ontological concept, Developmental Platform refers to a thing we want to study, we don’t have to adopt any theoretical approach as presupposition and basis. As an epistemological concept, Developmental Platforms can refer to a particular theoretical account as a stance for studying a thing.

For me, the epistemological solution for understanding “Developmental Platform” is the Ecological Practice approach. We will review it later.

Platform for Development

A major knowledge product of the “Platform” thematic space is the book Platform for Development: The Ecology of Adult Development in the 21st Century which is a draft. I wrote the first draft of the book from Feb 2021 to March 2021.

The Platform for Development framework refers to an intersection between digital platforms and adult development. I have been paying attention to these two domains for over ten years. As a participant in digital platforms, I am both a user, a curator, and a maker. As a participant in adult development, I have founded several non-profit online communities that aim to support the life development of university students and young professionals.

The diagram below presents my mind behind the work. The picture has seven red dots: Domain, Resource, Tools, Problem, Method, Concept, and Diagram. These elements are from the HERO U framework (the article, the diagram). The seven red balls refer to Personal Conditions of Knowing. The first group is Domain, Resource, and Tools, they define the outside setting of the knowing activity. The second group is Method and Problem, they define the source of competence and solution. The third group is Diagram and Concept, which define the format of the outcome of knowing. These three groups form a process of knowing.

I have used the same diagram for my interpretation of Yrjö Engeström’work on developing the model of human activity and Andy Blunden’s “Project as a unit of analysis of activity” approach. However, these two projects are knowledge curation work. This time, I use it for knowledge creation.

Relative Members

Green dots are visitors of the “Platform” thematic space. Let’s start from the Practice field:

Life Development: it is a related theme.

There are three major theoretical resources for my “Platform” thematic space.

Activity Theory: it connects to my “Activity” thematic space
Gird-Group Cultural Theory
The Ecological Practice Approach

Other green dots are under the Ecological Practice Approach:

Affordance
Ecological Physics Method
Supportance
Infoniche Framework
Lifesystem Framework

Platform Curativity

Now we can return to the topic of “Platform Curativity” because it is part of a framework called Double Gird-Group Framework.

In 2020, I used the diagram below to build the framework for discussing information architecture and personal development. This project was inspired by a discussion about note-taking, content curation, information overload, and personal development.

The framework was inspired by British anthropologist Mary Douglas’s Gird-Group cultural theory. The term “Curativity” was adopted from my 2019 book Curativity which focuses on turning pieces into a meaningful whole.

There are three types of Curativity in the context of information architecture and personal development: Platform Curativity, Institution Curativity, and Individual Curativity. There are different agencies, motivations, and goals behind this Curativity and sometimes they contradict each other.

In order to understand the mechanism of contradiction and coordination of multi-curativity, I adopted Mary Douglas’s Gird-Group model and expanded it to the Double Gird-Group Framework.

Douglas’s original model considered two dimensions: Group (the boundary of a community) and Gird (the structure of regulation). The Group dimension measures how much of people’s lives are controlled by the group they live in. The Gird dimension describes how different people are in the group and how they take on different roles.

There is an important distinction between offline environments and online environments. So, I doubled Douglas’ Gird-Group model, and the Traditional type of Group and Grid is considered to be distinguished from the Digital type of Group and Grid.

The final Double Gird-group framework uses four special signs: tGroup, dGroup, tGird, and dGird. The “t” stands for “traditional” and the “d” stands for “digital”.

For example, Institution Curativity is a traditional Group (tGroup) and Platform Curativity is a digital Group (dGroup). Following this logic, Individual Curativity within the Institution is traditional Gird (tGird), and the individual Curavitiy within the Platform is digital Grid (dGrid).

Later, I expanded this model to discuss digital transformation. You can find more details here.

The Ecological Practice Approach

As mentioned above, my major theoretical work is the Ecological Practice Approach. Each year I write a book that focuses on one theoretical concept of the approach.

How did I choose a phenomenon for a concept in order to write a book?

I chose Platform to introduce the concept of Supportance and the Infoniche framework. In fact, the idea of Supportance was born from the work about “Platform — Platformba” for the Platform Ecology project.

In fact, the pair concept of “Platform — Platformba” was initiated in 2019. Then, I started looking for a new concept for explaining the relationship between Platform and Platformba. One day in 2020, I got an idea for a new concept when I was reading James J. Gibson’s book The Ecological Approach To Visual Perception.

I paid attention to one sentence “…the surface affords support…” and the word “support.” Then, I realized that I could coin a new term Supportance, and develop it as a new theoretical concept.

Later, I realized that the concept of Supportance is not only about the “Platform — Platformba” relationship but about the “individual — social environments” relationship in general. Thus, the Ecological Practice Approach found its own baby.

The above diagram represents the complex relationship between Affordance, Supportance, and Activity. It is clear that I want to set two hierarchical loops. First, the Affordance — Supportance loop is located at the potential level. Second, the Action—activity loop is located at the actual level. Third, The potential hierarchical loop is corresponding to the actual hierarchical loop: Affordance — Action, Supportance — Activity.

By curating Ecological Psychology, the Ecological Practice approach, and Activity Theory together, this model sets the theoretical foundation for the Platform-for-Development framework and Platform Ecology in general.

The “Affordance — Supportance” hierarchical loop leads to the Lifesystem framework which is the last major task of the approach.

This is not a simple top-down path. In the beginning, I wanted to apply the ecological practice approach to study platform. Then, I discovered the concept of Supportance in order to find a concept for explaining “platform — platformba”. Later, I detached the concept of Supportance from the “platform” thematic space and attached it to the Ecological Practice approach.

I’d like to use my own term Attachance to describe it. You just need to attach mental focus to a container at a particular time and detach it from the container at the other time. A creative life is always about attaching and detaching. The Attachance perspective emphasizes the value and meaning of the attaching acts and the detaching acts, especially the cross-boundary actions. My passion behind the Attachance perspective is:

I want to encourage people to practice the detaching acts and the attaching acts.

This is the only way to remove the boundary between your life and the world. A new theory should give people hope and help.

What’s the meaning of “Platform”?

The meaning of a word depends on its context. For my “Platform” thematic space, “Platform” is the name of a thematic space.

The meaning of “ the Platform theme” is decided by its members. The above discussion offers a landscape of my “Platform” thematic space. Other people’s “Platform” thematic spaces are different from mine.

I also attached different meanings to the same word “Platform” for different tasks and coined several platform-related terms. My “Platform” thematic space looks chaotic, but I can understand these terms because I can remember their original contexts.

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