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TALE: A Possible Theme called “Idea Engagement”

Oliver Ding
TALE500
Published in
22 min readFeb 9, 2023

A New Perspective on Idea Generation

The above picture represents a Possible Theme called “The Project-Portfolio Gap”.

Two days ago, I shared a possible theme called “Business as Engagement” with the following diagram.

Today I am going to develop a new possible theme called “Idea Engagement” with the above diagram.

In fact, I have been talking about the theme of “Idea Engagement” with XX for several days. This post is a short summary of our loose discussion.

Three Types of Projects and Idea Generation

The theme of “Business as Engagement” connects “Activity System” and “Project Engagement” with business development. There are three theoretical resources behind the theme:

  • Activity-based view, Activity System, and Value Chain (Michael E. Porter, 1985)
  • The Activity System Model (Yrjö Engeström, 1987)
  • Activity as Formation of Concept, and Project as a unit of Activity (Andy Blunden, 2010, 2012, 2014)

I also use the Project Engagement approach (v2.1) to define three keywords, six units of analysis, and six guiding questions. In this way, we can start a new journey of knowledge engagement with a rough framework.

You can find more details in TALE: A Possible Theme called “Business as Engagement”.

Yrjö Engeström’s Activity System model has been orienting much empirical research since 1987. Clay Spinuzzi’s book All Edge is a great example. Spinuzzi adopts the term “adhocracies” from Alvin Toffler to describe the trend of projectification of works and organizations: “rotating teams of specialists who could come together to swarm a project, disperse at the end of it, and re-form in a different configuration for the next project.” (2015, p.1). Spinuzzi highlights a key organizational principle for differing all-edge adhocracies from bureaucracies: projectification.

The term “projectification” was coined by Christophe Midler who is a management professor in 1995. Midler uses the term to refer to the trend of transformation from hierarchical function-centered organization to cross-functional project-centered organization. According to Spinuzzi, “Projectification is the organizing principle of adhocracies: the organization of work around project teams oriented to defined projects, as opposed to departments oriented to narrow functions (the organizing principle of bureaucracies). The adhocracy is organized around a specific, defined project objective with a specific endpoint.” (2015, p.32)

Spinuzzi also identifies two types of projects. He points out, “…networks are well suited to unique projects that require innovation, flexibility, and creativity, particularly if these projects involve the inexpensive, rapid communication that is necessary for supporting constant mutual adjustment. But they’re not well suited for projects that require repeatability, operating efficiency, or control; those requirements are better fulfilled by an institutional hierarchy.” (2015, p.69)

Andy Blunden’s approach offers a third type of project: a project about the formation of a concept. In order words, the project is a social movement.

If we put these ideas together and connect them with business development, we can roughly define three types of projects. See the diagram below.

  • Project 1: the project that aims to discover new ideas for business development.
  • Project 2: the project that belongs to daily work activities of the Business Value Chain.
  • Project 3: the project that aims to turn ideas behind business into concepts for the development of culture and society.

In my opinion, Project-oriented Activity Theory can be adopted as a theory of radical innovation since the approach covers the whole developmental process of a brand-new concept. Organizational scholars use “Radical innovation — Incremental innovation” to discuss organizational innovation, “While incremental innovations are typically extensions to current product offerings or logical and relatively minor extensions to existing processes, radical product innovations involve the development or application of significantly new technologies or ideas into markets that are either nonexistent or require dramatic behavior changes to existing markets.” (McDermott and O’Connor, 2002)

I’d like to use “Radical innovation — Incremental Innovation” in a broader sense. From the perspective of Project-oriented Activity Theory, “Radical Innovation” can be definitely defined as a project with a brand-new concept while “Incremental Innovation” can be understood as a project with a good idea that is not ready for proposing as a brand-new concept.

Now we can use the three types of projects for Business Development. In this way, we build a framework of “Business” as “Project Engagement”.

We can use both Michael E. Porter’s Activity-based view and Yrjö Engeström’s Activity System Model for Project 2, we can use Andy Blunden’s Project-oriented Activity Theory for Project 3.

Finally, we can use “Strategic Discovery” to name Project 1.

Project 2: Incremental Innovation and Activity System

Since many people are familiar with Michael E. Porter’s Activity-based view and Value Chain, I am going to focus on Yrjö Engeström’s Activity System Model. See the diagram below.

Yrjö Engeström’s Activity System Model (1987)

The Activity System model is a general model of human collaborative activities. We can use it for two purposes:

  • B2C: Understand Users’ Activity
  • B2B: Understand the Value Chain of a Business

We use the popular terms “B2C” and “B2B” to describe these two purposes.

In fact, we don’t need a deep distinction between these two terms if we use the Activity System model.

We need to pay attention to the distinction between Disrupted Activity and Normal Activity.

A key concept of activity theory is “Contradictions”. Engeström also used this concept to guide the notion of “expansion”. He said, “Within the structure of any specific productive activity, the contradiction is renewed as the clash between individual actions and the total activity system…The fundamental contradiction arises out of the division of labor…The two directions or ‘opposite starting points’, from within an activity and from between two activities, are essential for the emerging concept of expansion…” (1987, pp.98–99)

The concept of “contradictions” can be applied to different levels of analysis. For example, it can be used to discuss contradictions within one activity or contradictions between two activities. It also can be used for analyzing high-level abstract “human activity system” such as “subject-producing activity”, or everyday life concrete “activity” such as “school bus activity”.

Four levels of contradictions within the human activity system (1987, p.103)

Engeström used the above diagram to discuss four levels of contradictions within the human activity system at the abstract high level. You can find more details in Activity System: Four levels of contradictions.

In the field of empirical research, Activity Theorists also use a term called “Disruptions”. In 2013, Activity Theorist Clay Spinuzzi published a book about a methodology for researching work activities with Activity Theory: Topsight: A guide to studying, diagnosing, and fixing information flow in organizations.

Source: Topsight (Clay Spinuzzi, 2013)

The above chart is the summary of analytical models for Topsight. Based on the three-level hierarchy of Activity Theory, Topsight suggests the following three levels of activity:

  • Macro (organization) level: culture and history; objectives and outcomes.
  • Meso (human) level: actions and goals.
  • Micro (habit) level: habits and reactions.

In fact, there are two models at the Macro level: Activity Systems and Activity Networks. Since the basic unit of Activity Networks is an Activity System, we can also consider it as a four-level hierarchy.

For Topsight, the most important theme is Understanding Disruptions. According to Clay Spinuzzi, “If you’ve carefully collected data, you can find patterns to people’s work, including patterns in their mistakes and difficulties. That’s because work is generally set up in cycles and managed with relatively stable information resources and work patterns. Because that’s the case, even mistakes and difficulties tend to cluster around specific parts of the work. Let’s call those mistakes disruptions. Disruptions happen at different levels: macro, meso, and micro levels.” (2013, p.165–166)

Each level has its own type of disruptions:

  • Micro level: Breakdowns
  • Meso level: Discoordinations
  • Macro level: Contradictions

This hierarchy is awesome! Since we have a model of the hierarchy of activity, we can assign problems to different levels which require different solutions.

For an established business (B2B) and an established social practice (B2C), we can find different disruptions. Many disruptions lead to incremental innovation because people don’t want to change the whole Activity System.

In fact, most time we don’t have to change the whole Activity System. Solving one breakdown at the micro level could lead to an innovative product or service!

Project 3: Radical Innovation and Social Change

I use Project-oriented Activity Theory to refer to a new approach to Activity Theory: Andy Blunden’s approach “Activity as Formation of Concept” and “Project as a unit of Activity”, and my Project Engagement approach.

Project-oriented Activity Theory can be adopted as a theory of radical innovation since the approach covers the whole developmental process of a brand-new concept.

We can use B2S (Business to Society) to name a new purpose for adopting Project-oriented Activity Theory and the Project Engagement approach.

In order to develop the theoretical foundation of “Project as a unit of Activity”, Blunden adopts Hegel’s Logic and Vygotsky’s theory about Concepts as theoretical resources. The process is documented in three books: An Interdisciplinary Theory of Activity (2010), Concepts: A Critical Approach (2012), and Collaborative Projects: An Interdisciplinary Study (2014).

For Blunden, the concept of Project is close to “Social Movements (in the broadest sense)” (2014, p.9) He emphasizes, “The project inheres in the artifact-mediated actions, norms, rules and symbols flowing form the project’s self-concept and underlying the actions which constitute the project. In my Concepts, A Critical Approach (Blunden, 2012) I examined these relations in some detail, but what is important here is how projects manifest themselves as social movements (in the broadest sense), before becoming, fully or partly, institutionalized as part of a social formation which is itself nothing but the product of many such social movements in the past.” (2014, p.9)

Here we see the third view of Project: a social movement (in the broadest sense) as a change of social practice (Project III).

We should notice that Project 3 is a process of Formation of a Concept. It has three phases: Initialization, Objectification, and Institutionalization.

Each Radical Innovation could lead to Project 3 which is a large social collaborative project or moment. For a particular Business Firm, there are many options to particulate in the movement.

A firm can choose the Timing (select a phase), the Role (lead or follow), and the Strategy (open or close), etc.

How to connect Project-oriented Activity Theory with the practice of business development?

In March 2021, I developed a framework called Concept-fit for understanding Platform Innovation. Now we can use it to discuss Radical Innovation.

I will directly use original diagrams for the Concept-fit framework. You can consider “Platform Innovation” as an example of “Radical Innovation”.

The above diagram is based on the HERO U diagram. Blue circles refer to technological concepts and green circles refer to sociocultural concepts. Each side has three levels of concepts. Thus, the term “Concept-fit” means six types of concepts fit together from two sides and three levels.

  • Technological concepts at the Theoretical level
  • Technological concepts at the Operational level
  • Technological concepts at the Product level
  • Sociocultural concepts at the Collective level
  • Sociocultural concepts at the Individual level
  • Sociocultural concepts at the Project level

The distinction between Technological concepts and Sociocultural concepts corresponds to the distinction between Natural science and Social science/humanities. Thus, socio-cultural concepts refer to any non-technological concepts including political concepts and economical concepts.

Readers may argue that this is an oppositional dualism: the nature-culture divide. However, it is better to consider the above U diagram as a spectrum. We should think about nature and culture as part of the spectrum as a whole. Moreover, I will adopt Hegel’s theory of Concept for understanding these three levels. It will provide us with a great approach to thinking dynamic process of fit between nature and culture.

An existing concept can refer to an established social practice which means an institutionalized innovation. While Search Engine was a technological innovation in the 1990s, it is an institutionalized innovation in 2021. It’s so hard to find a new opportunity for technological innovation in Search Engines in 2021. If an existing concept has a short history, then the social practice behind the concept is not fully institutionalized. For example, the concept of “Passion Economy” is a fresh idea, but the social practice behind the concept is not solid enough. However, some startup teams would adapt existing technologies to develop innovative products for the rise of “Passion Economy.” This process is called objectification of concept.

Usually, people adopt a new concept in three ways: 1) read messages about the concept, 2) touch an exemplar of the concept, and 3) take an action that is guided by the concept. These three ways work together. For example, Li Jun coined the term “Passion Economy” and wrote an article about it. Her article highlights several examples of Passion Economy. Finally, people have to make or use one or more products of Passion Economy to gain real experience of the concept.

Once a new trend has a name such as “Passion Economy,” it would quickly becomes a piece of common knowledge and is possibly known by everyone in the market. Then, the trend would lead to a highly competitive market because firms would follow the trend and invest in more sources to develop a better quality product and more budgets for aggressive marketing. It is so easy to recreate the same product with a little modification and rebranding work. Eventually, the early teams will lose their competitive advantages if they can’t build their brands and acquire enough customer base in a short duration.

Obviously, the “Passion Economy” is a highly competitive market in 2021. We should notice that the great exemplar of “Passion Economy” is Patreon which was founded in 2013. If we consider Kickstarter as a member of the family of “Passion Economy,” then we can say the category of “Passion Economy” has over 10 years of history since Kickstarter was founded in 2009. Usually, Kickstarter is considered an exemplar of “Crowdfunding.” However, a concrete product can be considered an exemplar of several concepts.

By adopting ideas from Project-oriented Activity Theory and the Ecological Practice approach, the Concept-fit Framework takes a small step toward responding to the “technology — society” debate at the theoretical level. It also offers a new perspective for practitioners of Platform Innovation at the practice level.

The Concept-fit framework was developed with two Fields and three Forms. Two Fields refer to the Technological Field and the Sociocultural Field. Three Forms refer to three movements of Concept: Universal, Individual, and Particular.

Blunden points out, “As Hegel explained, every concept exists as Individual, Particular, and Universal. These three moments of the concept are never completely in accord. There is always a measure of dissonance between them, and this is manifested in the dynamics of the concept. What an individual means when they use the word is never quite the same as the meaning produced in any other context.” (2012, p.295)

The above diagram adopts “Universal,” “Individual,” and “Particular” for Concept-fit. In this way, we can consider “Product” and “Project” as the Particular movement of Concept. In order words, at the theoretical abstract level, Concept-fit means “Universal fit,” “Individual fit,” and “Particular fit”.

For Platform Innovation, the Universal form of concept includes Theoretical level technological concepts and Collective level sociocultural concepts. The Individual form of concept includes Operational level technological concepts and Individual level sociocultural concepts. The Particular form of concept includes Product and Project. Here we can understand Product as Platform and Project as Platform-based activity or practice because Project-oriented Activity Theory uses Project as the unit of analysis of Activity.

For Platform Innovation, I consider two fields as the context of Concept-fit:

  • Technological field
  • Sociocultural field

Here the term “field” is inspired by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of Field. For Bourdieu, a social field is a social container that contains social agents and their various social practices such as production, circulation, and appropriation and exchange of goods, services, knowledge, or status. The concept of Field connects to Habitus and Capital. Bourdieu develops a typology of Capital: economic capital, symbolic capital, cultural capital, and social capital.

The benefit of adopting Bourdieu’s ideas is that we can connect Concepts with Capital. For Bourdieu, symbolic capital is about the resources available to an individual on the basis of honor, prestige, or recognition, and serves as the value that one holds within a culture. We can consider Authorship of Concept as a special type of symbolic capital. If a person creates a brand new concept and the concept is accepted by others, then we can claim that the person has a unique symbolic capital due to the production of the concept. Cultural capital refers to a person’s cultural knowledge related to social assets such as education, competencies, skills, qualifications, style of speech, style of dress, etc. Here we can consider Readership of Concept as a special type of cultural capital. Since a brand new concept is a cultural knowledge of social change, the way of accepting, understanding, and using the new concept creates a new social practice. While authors of concepts own symbolic capital, readers of concepts own cultural capital.

From the perspective of the Ecological Practice approach, I prefer “Possible Practice” rather than “Existing Practice.” Thus, the debate about technological determinism is not very attractive to me. What I really care about is the possibilities offered by technology, culture, or both. Also, Bourdieu’s theory doesn’t consider possible practice too much. Thus, we need to adopt ideas from the Ecological Practice approach for discussing the evolution of social practices.

The Affordance — Supportance potential hierarchical loop is the newest development of the Ecological Practice approach. I have introduced the notion in the article Platform, Platform-ba, and Platform Ecology. I also provided a deep discussion about the concept of Supportance. For Platform Innovation, we can start our discussion with the following diagram:

The Platform-ba is defined as a platform-based sociocultural field that contains a platform-based social practice. For example, YouTube is a platform, the YouTube-ba is the YouTube-base sociocultural field. 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.

For Platform Innovation, we care about the evolution of Affordances and Supportances. The most important idea is the relationship between Concepts and Affordances/Supportances. From the perspective of the Ecological Practice approach, actions mean Actualizing Affordances and Supportances. If a creative action is accepted and recognized by people, it will be named with a word and the word will become a concept. From the perspective of Project-oriented Activity Theory, this process is called Symbolic Objectification. According to Blunden, “Firstly, the moment someone first communicates the concept of the project it is given a name or symbolically represented in some other way, after which the word or symbol functions as a focus for actions. The word eventually enters the language and acquires nuances and meaning through the development of the project and its interaction with other projects and institutions.” (2014, p.9)

Now, we see a great time window between the status of Creative Action and the status of Symbolic Objectification. You see some things new happen in the real world but they have not been named yet. This is the perfect timing for Platform Innovation.

The above section discussed three types of Concept-fit at the concrete level. Now let’s move to the abstract level to discuss the issue of social innovation. I consider platform-based social innovation as the outcome of three movements of transformation:

  • Technological Objectification
  • Cultural Typification
  • Niche Construction

The term Technological Objectification is inspired by Project-oriented Activity Theory. The term Cultural Typification is inspired by Alfred Schutz’s insights on types and typification. The term Niche Construction is adopted from Niche Construction Theory (NCT).

I also mentioned several theoretical resources for the Concept-fit framework. Though these ideas are not primary support to the framework, it is worth mentioning the following ideas as the context of our discussion.

  • Social Representation (Serge Moscovici, 1961)
  • SCOT — Social Construction of Technology (Trevor Pinch & Wiebe Bijker, 1984)
  • Narrative economics (Robert J. Shiller, 2019)
  • Themes of Practice (Oliver Ding, 2019)
  • Concept Dynamics (Oliver Ding, 2020)
  • Creative Realism (Ronald A. Finke)

You can find more details in Platform Innovation as Concept-fit.

Project 1: Strategic Discovery as a Second-order Activity

As mentioned above, Project 1 could be named “Strategic Discovery” or other terms. Let’s use “Strategic Discovery” for the present discussion.

In 2021, I started working on the Anticipatory Activity System (AAS) framework and applied it to study Life Strategy and adult development in general.

The Anticipatory Activity System (AAS) framework is inspired by Activity Theory and Anticipatory System theory. It aims to offer an abstract model for understanding “Self, Other, Present, Future”.

While the traditional Activity Theory focuses on “Exploitative Activity”, the AAS framework is more about “Exploratory Activity”.

Now we can connect the Anticipatory Activity System (AAS) framework with the field of Business Development, especially the pair of concepts of “Exploitation — Exploration” inspired by James March.

According to James March, “It is clear that a strategy of exploitation without exploration is a route to obsolescence. It is equally clear that a strategy of exploration without exploitation is a route to elimination. But it is not clear where the optimum lies between those two extremes. The problem is partly one ignorance about the distribution of costs and benefits, but it is only partly that. A deeper problem is that specifying the optimum requires comparing costs and returns across time and space. An exploitation/exploration balance that is good in the short run is likely not to be good in the long run. And a balance that is good for the individual actor is likely not to be good in the long run for the community of actors. Thus, although we cannot specify the optimum balance, we know that that optimum depends on the time and space perspective taken. More specifically, the longer the time horizon and the broader the space horizon, in general, the more the optimum moves toward exploration.” (Explorations in Organizations, 2008, p.109)

I also adopt the concept of Emergence for the discussion. I was inspired by Henry Mintzberg’s ideas on strategic planning.

Source: The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning (Henry Mintzberg, p.359, 1994)

According to Henry Mintzberg, “…we believe, is that the concept of strategy formation has always been misconstrued, forcing strategic control to bypass one critical aspect — the possibility of emergent strategy. As shown in Figure 6–5, there is certainly the need to assess the performance of deliberate strategies (shown as B on the figure), and, stepping back (A), the need to assess the degree of realization of the strategies that were formally intended in the first place (in the words of Schended and Hofer’s book on strategic management, “whether (1) the strategy is being implemented as planned; and (2) the results produced by the strategy are those intended” [1979:18]). But before these must come another activity ( C ), namely the assessment of whatever strategies were, in fact, realized, whether intended or not. And the last activity must be enlarged (D) to encompass the assessment of the performance of all those strategies. In other words, strategic control must assess behavior as well as performance. Once again it must be appreciated that there is more to strategy formation than planning.”(1994, p.359)

By adopting the concept of Emergence, we can make a good balance between Exploitation and Exploration. See the diagram below.

While the Present room is real, the Future room is not real. However, we are not always staying in the Present room because it needs to be oriented to the Future room. This is the value of Anticipation.

From the perspective of Anticipatory Activity System, Strategic Discovery belongs to Second-order Activity. See the diagram below.

The traditional Activity Theory considers Activity as object-oriented activity. For the AAS framework, it refers to First-order Activity. There is a goal or an objective, then the goal directs a new activity.

However, where does an objective or a goal come from?

What will happen when a person doesn’t have a clear objective or a goal?

This situation will lead to Second-order Activity which aims to discover an objective or a goal for a new activity, a First-order Activity.

What’s the value of the distinction between First-order Activity and Second-order Activity?

It offers a solution to understand the Source dimension of Activity. Where does a First-order Activity come from? It comes from an Objective or a goal. Where does the objective come from? It comes from a Second-order Activity.

Strategic Discovery is the beginning of any new business activity.

From the Awareness dimension, I discovered two types of Second-order Activity.

The Explicit Second-order Activity is defined by the Objective while the Tacit Second-order Activity can be indicated by the Outcome.

You can find more details in Life Discovery: The “Tacit” Type of Second-order Activity.

From my empirical research about Life Discovery, I also discovered three types of Second-order Activity:

  • Artificial (Explicit Second-order Activity)
  • Natural (Explicit Second-order Activity)
  • Tacit Second-order Activity

These three types of Second-order Activity are highlighted from the perspective of Subjective Experience.

1. Artificial (Explicit Second-order Activity)

For example, a person joins an adult development program to run a Life Discovery Activity. The program is an artificial setting.

2. Natual (Explicit Second-order Activity)

For example, a person runs a podcast and considers it as a Life Discovery Activity.

3. Tacit Second-order Activity

A person doesn’t know there is a Life Discovery Activity in his life. However, he perceives a significant insight about something. He reflects on the journey which leads to a significant insight.

This journey is a Tacit Second-order Activity.

I think this typology is also suitable for Strategic Discovery in the field of Business Development. Let’s discuss an example from

Richard P. Rumelt’s book Good Strategy, Bad Strategy. The case is about the reborn of Starbucks:

In 1983, Howard Schultz noticed an anomaly and from that insight a fascinating new business was eventually born. At that time, Schultz was the marketing and retail operations manager for a tiny chain of Seattle stores selling dark-roasted coffee beans.

On his first visit to Italy, Schultz discovered the Italian espresso experience, “It was on that day I discovered the ritual and romance of coffee bars in Italy. I saw how popular they were, and how vibrant. Each one had its own unique character, but there was one common thread: the camaraderie between the customers, who knew each other well, and the barista, who was performing with flair. At that time, there were 200,000 coffee bars in Italy, and 1,500 alone in the city of Milan, a city the size of Philadelphia.” (2011, pp.249–250)

Rumelt uses the word “Anomaly” to describe Schultz’s experience, “For Schultz, the experience in Milan was an anomaly. In Seattle, the market for dark-roasted arabica beans was a niche, populated by a small but growing group of especially discerning buyers. But the vast majority of people in Seattle, and in American — even the well-to-do — drink cheap, bland coffee. In Milan, expensive high-quality coffee was not a niche product but the mass-market product. And there was a further anomaly: in the United States, fast food meant cheap food and plastic surroundings. In Milan he saw ‘fast coffee’ that was expensive and served in a lively social atmosphere, so different from that of an American Main Street diner or coffee shop. Americans, especially those in the Northwest, were at least as wealthy as Italians. Why should they drink ‘bad’ coffee and not enjoy the pleasures of an espresso latte in a social setting?” (2011, pp. 249–250)

We can guess that Schultz was one of the millions of visitors in the year when he first visited Milan. Also, we should notice that the Italian espresso experience is not a private thing. It’s open to Schultz and other people.

However, only one person turned his experience into a strategic hypothesis: the Italian espresso experience could be re-created in America and the public would embrace it. The project of Reborn of Starbucks was started with such an idea which grew into a real concept later.

Schultz’s story is a great example of Tacit Second-order Activity. His Strategic Discovery wasn’t planned but emerged from his embodied experience with the real-life world.

Where do good ideas come from? They come from anywhere!

Don’t use one particular framework to block your business imagination!

Maybe you are an expert on a particular method, you don’t have to reject other methods. We need to embrace Methodological Empathy.

Related Articles

Themes
Business Innovation
Radical Innovation
Disruptive Innovation
Product Discovery

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Oliver Ding
TALE500

Written by Oliver Ding

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Founder of CALL(Creative Action Learning Lab), information architect, knowledge curator.

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