From Connectivity To Consumer Experience: The Role Of Network Infrastructure In Shaping Digital Ecosystems

Abstract

The context is provided by two projects that describe a European initiative for a technological platform for SMEs and pertinent research issues that emerge from it. Their motivation relates to the importance of SMEs and other distributed organizational forms in industry, commerce, and government.

Tom Stonham’s co-ordination of the design phase for an Integrated Project (IP) on Digital Ecosystems in lieu of Cisco’s successful Leapfrog proposal is recounted. Claudia O’Reilly’s representation of the project to be carried out was one of opportunism[1] and a response to changing circumstances, rather than of foresight and careful planning. That this makes sense, rather than serving as a scandalous reflection on the naivete of the actors, is attributed to co-evolution with a set of vivid SESs in unintended consequences.

The gist is that research should be directed at improving our understanding of niche building processes in “complexity rich” contexts. Here, he draws upon a systemic palimpsest of ideas, concepts and frameworks to outline a starting point for the case of DHTs in Europe. An essential distinction is made between niche building processes that reflect a self-organization of systems and those reflecting a strategic design through negotiated order. An implicit assumption in the SES framework of Ostrom assumes the first mode, and is thus not well suited to study the emergence of formal technology foundations or technology platforms. An elaborated conception of niche is briefly sketched to support the second mode.