Relation to value
It’s important, though perhaps strange at first, to recognise that resources have no value. They have only potential to help make progress when integrated with other resources.
Resources have only the potential to help make progress; which is released used during resource integrations…
Which raises the question of resource efficiency. Something we’ll come back to when considering innovation opportunities.
Resource integration
In the progress economy we see value as emerging from making progress. And progress is only made through resource integration. This is the fundamental basis of value (co-) creation in the progress economy. Leading to the concepts of value-through-progress and value-in-use.
We integrate 2 or more resources during progress-makings steps of progress attempts.
Naturally, at least one resource in any integration needs to be operant – acting on the other resources. It comes from either the seeker (often the seeker themselves) or the helper (a resource from their progress resource mix).
Relation to innovation
offering better progress
We primarily innovate resources to improve progress that can be made through resource integrations.
The overall goal of a seeker’s progress attempt is to reach their progress sought. They may attempt to use their existing resources in innovative ways, including in novel combinations.
Alternatively a seeker looks to a progress helper for supplementary resources. The helper may innovate their resources in order to:
- get their progress offered to closer match individual seeker’s progress sought
- better reach their current progress offered
- reduce one or more of the six progress hurdles
The helper offers some of their resources to the seeker to integrate with in the form of the progress resource mix.
A progress proposition includes proposed progress-making steps. These are also ripe for innovation to meet the same goals as above.
Leveraging skills from other markets/industries
Seekers are constantly attempting to progress with many things. This means they experience many markets and industries that are different than yours. They are learning new skills and gaining new knowledge there.
Innovators should be aware of what seekers are learning elsewhere and identify what can be “carried” into the helpers resource integration proposals. Think of the pervasive multi-uses of QR codes, as an example.
Educating seekers
We saw above (Alves, Ferreira, and Fernandes (2016)) that educating/training seekers increases co-value creation. How can you educate your seekers to improve resource integrations in your proposal? Where we should think of education in its broadest sense (one-one, group, physical, virtual, trial usage, AI instructors/tools and so on)
Increasing resource usage efficiency
We saw that resources are only creating value when used in acts of integration. Think of it this way: a screwdriver or an employee are not contributing to any progress (creating no value) when they are not used.
There’s even an academic debate on whether they can be called resources when not in action. Rather than jump down that rabbit hole, let’s summarise this as saying innovation should look at how to maximise use of resources. Which hints to subscription or sharing models – as long as allocation does not become a problem…
Let’s progress together through discussion…