Tools for a Revolution
Part 2
The story of rebuilding a strategy and design agency to get ready for the era of digital platforms and epic challenges
Part 2 — Our Strategic Shift
THE BIG SHIFT
All revolutions require their conceptual and practical tools (as we described in the first part of the story).
In 1968, launched the seminal publication Whole Earth Catalog, with an idea to provide cyberneticists, hippies, naturalists and tech geeks “access to tools” for the New Age. It was the how-to manual, literary review, lifestyle guide, and shopping catalog for the counterculture movement of the time. The tools — geodesic domes, self-actualizing technologies, solar energy applications, early personal computers, whole system thinking, and more — were instrumental elements in the technological, ideological and social upheaval of the ‘60s and ‘70s and had a deep effect on our collective identities, ideals and values.
Nearly 50 years later, it seems evident that the revolution is about to happen again, at the same intersection of technological, natural and socio-cultural systems. Yet, this time the problems, the means for solutions and the momentum are all on a very different scale. The new realities require updated tools and enlightened visions what to do with them.
The ongoing transition to the Anthropocene, the era of complex networks and global digital platforms, and the age of extensive polarization, among other major shifts, has forced us to rethink our own purpose, both as individuals and as a company at Wevolve. It has also guided us to embark on a journey to build something for the global creative and business community that wants to be on the right side of the revolution of exponentially better businesses.
ACCELERATING THE CONSULTANCY MODEL
Wevolve started as a strategic research and design agency in 2010 in Brooklyn, New York. After working years with a global corporation on ground-breaking ethnographic and futures research and innovation projects on five continents, and with leading agencies in New York, London, SF, and beyond, it felt almost a responsibility to start using the expertise with other companies and organizations that wanted to change for the better.
We were driven to bring the human element back to business, along with a systemic understanding of the cultural and technological change, to find opportunities for radical innovation.
We were driven to bring the human element back to business, along with a systemic understanding of the cultural and technological change, to find opportunities for radical innovation. Our approach combined fluently explorative research, backed by strong social science and futures research expertise, and strategic design skills to first identify the biggest opportunities for change and then create the roadmaps for transformation.
The agency eventually moved in Helsinki, while keeping the Brooklyn outpost active (leaving Brooklyn? Fuhgeddaboudit.). Since then we have worked with a roster of awesome companies and organizations on two continents.
For example, we collaborated with Nokia to create their first social innovation strategy, mapped the future lifestyles in Europe and the US by 2020 for the European Union, worked with Yle — Finland’s national public service broadcasting company to define a new approach for shared value creation, and helped some 30 startups at the 2014 Slush Conference to find their purpose and hone their pitch.
It’s been humbling and exciting to see the impact in the dozens of organizations we have collaborated with. But at the same time we have realized that if we want to be a positive force for change the old consultative model is not enough. Because we can only work with so many teams, companies and organizations at a time, and we have always wanted to do more.
We have realized that if we want to be a positive force for change the old consultative model is not enough.
The decision came when we did a research project on 21st Century value creation across Europe and the U.S. that lead us to meet some two dozens of top experts who think differently about value and the ways we should create it. The project lead to ground-breaking ideas of what the next wave of business is about — as well as to personal enlightenment.
If we really want to become exponentially better in creating positive impact, we have to walk our talk and transform Wevolve to a company that:
- Becomes a transformational force by combining the elements of high-growth technology business and high-impact social enterprise in its business model.
- Has a prodigious purpose that stems from a set of special superpowers that are aimed at some of the wonkiest problems in the world.
- Creates abundant value by championing important cultural movements and enabling others to take collective action for a shared purpose.
- Builds a growing platform and a superior value system where products, services and brands are only the visible tip of the transformational whole.
HELPING YOU TO BUILD EXPONENTIALLY BETTER BUSINESSES
We are now launching a new service that helps you to build exponentially better businesses. It will provide tools, training and thinking to empower entrepreneurs, leaders, creatives and managers to initiate and drive change within their organizations, around the world.
We are now launching a service that helps you to build exponentially better businesses. It will provide tools, training and thinking to empower entrepreneurs, leaders, creatives and managers.
In practice, this means a combination of digital and physical TOOLS that people can use to build better and more value creative business models and offerings. These are accompanied with TRAINING modules online and in real life to help people and teams to learn the essentials of building the new wave businesses. New THINKING means publications that will supplement the tools and training, and provide a soapbox for a community of progressive minds from startups, agencies, corporations and academia, starting with the recently published The New Wave Company online report.
Our objective remains to bring the human element back to business and creativity and humanities to the workplace. But rather than helping just few organizations at once, we are creating a service platform for anyone to change their organization.
Rather than helping just few organizations at once, we are creating a service platform for anyone to change their organization.
We continue working directly with our clients to develop, test and use our tools, training and thinking—and help them to become exponentially better in what they do.
In fact, we are now launching three training modules for companies and organizations that run as half day long sessions: 1) Finding your purpose, 2) Creating value rich business models, and 3) Building service platforms for networked value creation.
If you want to join us for the ride, or start building an exponentially better business, get in touch.
You can read the first part “The Rationale for Change” of Tools for a Revolution here:
