Sustainable cluster development (part 1 of 2)

"We need to play more jazz together”

- Trust-based and outcome-oriented ecosystems for digital and green transformation.

It is evident that through collaboration with others, we can reach new heights. For a long time, we have invested in clusters, science parks, and other network organizations, often geographically and/or thematically delimited. Through a variety of management forms and funding models, we have created a plethora of actors and meta-organizations operating within the innovation spheres.

If yesterday's goal was to strengthen or leverage the strength of a sector, tomorrow's should focus more on what we need to achieve. In this case, the actors are not predetermined, and the goal is flexible. Where yesterday we wanted to invest in life sciences, today we aim for health, and instead of focusing on vehicles, we seek mobility. With these goals, a broader palette of actors can contribute cross-disciplinarily.

Many talk about mission-driven innovation. Inspired by the joint effort of the 1960s to do everything necessary within a limited time to put a person on the moon, today we talk about finding sustainable energy supply or solving the challenges of a pandemic. In doing so, we need to mobilize and engage beyond our geography and established industry boundaries, where limitations become constraints.

We operate today in an established and outdated view of how we should create economic growth through collaboration and need to take new approaches.

Therefore, we need to move from local to global, delimited to inclusive, support for individual actors to system transformation, short-term goals to a sustainable mindset, limiting industry focus to societal value, and from cooperation to co-creation.

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Learning is an organic phenomenon where the neurons of the brain use their dendrites to connect with other neurons. Each neural network regulates and enables actions that are tactically or memory-automated, which is how we learn to play instruments or relate to past experiences. Google uses the same principle to evaluate web pages, where those with many strong connections are valued higher because of their impact and value is higher. Metcalfe's law describes the same phenomenon.

Thus, a system is only as strong as its internal and external connections, and when we use the term ecosystem, we refer to how all its components depend on each other for their potential capacity and ability.

"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant."

- Robert Louis Stevenson.

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Cluster organizations are created to meet a challenge or solve a problem. At the same time, it is a long-term investment, which in itself shows that the goal or mission must be something not met with simple solutions.

Some cornerstones of clusters are a clear anchoring and ambition of and for society, as well as the involvement of organizations that contribute with different but complementary activities, such as regions and municipalities, educational institutions and academic researchers, and large and small entrepreneurial companies.

Cluster organizations have a difficult task for several reasons. One is that 1) stakeholders are so different in their cultures, management models, and incentive structures that they have few overlapping common interests. Another is 2) the ability not to get stuck in administration, 3) to gain and maintain independence, a fourth 4) to earn and maintain relevance, and 5) to demonstrate results that appeal to and convince stakeholders of the cluster organization's continued existence.

To meet the first challenge, the organization needs to work on issues on a scale where everyone buys into the value. This means lifting the issues to a high strategic level - let's call it the 10,000-meter strategy. In the details, differences are visible, but the higher the altitude, the more commonality, albeit with diluted direct and immediate individual gain, creating a dilemma - today's utility versus sustainable long-term systemic effect.

The second difficult task is that the cluster organization must be unsentimental enough not to get stuck in repetition and administration but instead catalyze and/or initiate with the intention of finding another administration or none at all. As soon as an organization falls into administration, it must grow to do more or new things. And an organization stuck in routines has no time to create or change.

The third difficult task is usually created in its founders or stakeholders. Those who see the value of having a cluster organization often look at their own interests as reasons to support its establishment. Independence must exist here, trust in the cluster’s ability to perform its task must be total, and any interference must be prevented, detected, and/or eliminated. As soon as the various stakeholders, as we have already noted, often at the lower altitude have completely different interests, gain influence, the cluster function loses its existential right, and soon the trust of those "not getting as much as someone else."

The fourth difficult task builds on the 10,000-meter strategy and a large dose of communication, as the short-sighted and result-oriented stakeholder finds it difficult to see value in engaging in something expected to have an effect in many years (or never?). The cluster organization must work closely and translate the overarching strategy into accessible and convincing short-term milestones or effects.

The fifth difficult task builds on the previous ones, where long-term vision is the strength. The cluster organization must avoid celebrating victories from short-lived results and stick to its conviction of higher long-term value. An organization that constantly delivers results does not need to seek confirmation with short-term successes, so the value for the cluster, city or geographical area is more important than the cluster's own brand.

This creates, of course, an additional difficult sixth task, which is to agree on the big vision, where each individual actor is negligible in relation to the whole, at the expense of the organization's own brand.

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This is the first of a two-part article.

The next will focus on Learnings and guiding principles. You can read part two here >>