I was listening to a podcast this week where one of the guests said that using the word “ecosystem” had become a “drinking game”. In fact, it’s surely a word to include in your “buzzword bingo” when attending conferences.

Very often, we hear the term “technology ecosystem” or “ecosystem” in reference to several companies and organizations. When I’m curious, which is all the time, I ask for a description of this ecosystem. I want to see the ecosystem. I want to understand the ecosystem.

Nature’s way of doing things

What I’ve observed is that very few people understand what an ecosystem is. If I tell you that nature is made up of animals, plants and rivers, you’ll probably say it’s an ecosystem.

But if I tell you that water evaporates and eventually falls back as rain, which waters the fields, feeds the chickens, produces manure, fertilizes the fields, feeds the chickens, which, which, which, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc… Now you can understand the ecosystem. You can understand that adding or removing an element will change the ecosystem. How much? A little? It depends? You can also understand that I haven’t named everything in detail, but that you get the gist.

Your ecosystem is a list…

I’ve seen many lists in my life, but… really, all I see are lists. While this one is important and a starting point, I see very few people mapping the relationships between the elements. Ecosystems are thus left to interpretation by the people who consult the lists. Without relationships, how is it possible to strategize by adding, removing or altering an element?

What constitutes ecosystem mapping

In a professional context, there are a few elements that I favor when doing this work:

1 – People, groups, companies, etc.

Who are the people or entities involved?

2 – Relationships

What is the relationship between the people in the ecosystem? Who makes the decisions? Is it a partnership? Is the relationship direct or indirect?

3 – Influences

Is the relationship tangible, such as an exchange of money for a product? Or intangible, such as information and influence? Are these relationships positive or negative?

What does it look like?

There are many ways to document and interact with an ecosystem. But for the sake of argument, here’s a cartography I invented for my corporate design needs.

In this example, we have interacting companies. They are influenced by laws, the purchase of materials, and the purchase of services and products. Each of these relationships has a dynamic that impacts the environment, prices and sales.

For those of you currently playing “take a shot” at every use of the word “ecosystem”, you’re up to 17.

Thinking is not communicating.

In such an exercise, the map is not what we show everyone. It’s what we find interesting that needs to be extracted and shared. In the previous example, there could have been 50 companies with arrows everywhere, but that would have been indigestible. So, I extract the story that matters for what we deem essential to innovate or solve a problem.

So, do you make lists or maps of ecosystems?