Perspective
Example: City Ecosystem

A graphic from a University of Cambridge Executive Briefing titled 'Collaborate to Innovate ... How Business Ecosystems Unleash Business Value.'

This graphic comes from page 11 of a University of Cambridge Executive Briefing titled 'Collaborate to Innovate ... How Business Ecosystems Unleash Business Value.'

From the Burgess perspective, there is something seriously wrong with this representation of an ecosystem. It is something that is common ... ubiquitous ... and in my view highlights a very serious issue with the way in which the world ... the enviro-socio-economic system ... is perceived.

This representation of a city ecosystem has the following major groupings of ecosystem players:

• Government and utilities;

• Businesses;

• Intermediators;

• Academia; and

• Entrepreneurs

Well ... YES ... but what about people? What about the residents of the place, and those that come to work in the place. I would argue that these people are way more important than any of the groups so carefully described in the graphic.

At its core, this Cambridge paper has the business as the center of everything, and people for all practical purposes ignored.

This is a widespread perspective, and explains in large part why policy formulation tends to be ineffective no matter whether the politics of the policy are left or right.