A stack is layers. A braid creates traction. The tensile strength of a rope doesn’t come from any single strand—it comes from how the strands pull together, reinforcing one another. That’s what a healthy innovation ecosystem looks like. Youth + Academia The Talent Strand The strand the entire ecosystem runs on — and the one most likely to be training talent for somewhere else. Every ecosystem says talent is its top priority. Very few treat the Talent strand like the renewable resource it...
8 days ago • 14 min read
A stack is layers. A braid creates traction. The tensile strength of a rope doesn’t come from any single strand—it comes from how the strands pull together, reinforcing one another. That’s what a healthy innovation ecosystem looks like. Startups The Proof Strand The strand everyone calls the output - and almost no one treats as a contributor. Ask an ecosystem what it’s building for, and the answer is usually some version of “successful startups.” Fair enough - the whole braid is designed to...
15 days ago • 13 min read
A stack is layers. A braid creates traction. The tensile strength of a rope doesn’t come from any single strand—it comes from how the strands pull together, reinforcing one another. That’s what a healthy innovation ecosystem looks like. Government Organizations The Infrastructure Strand The strand that sets the conditions everything else runs on — usually without anyone noticing, until it breaks. Most ecosystem builders think about Government in one of two modes: as a source of grant money,...
22 days ago • 10 min read
A stack is layers. A braid creates traction. The tensile strength of a rope doesn’t come from any single strand—it comes from how the strands pull together, reinforcing one another. That’s what a healthy innovation ecosystem looks like. The Market Validation Strand The strand that delivers what no grant can replicate, and the one most likely to be missing. Here is a finding that stops rooms cold. Across more than 40 scorecard sessions, when ecosystem builders rate their connection to...
29 days ago • 10 min read
A stack is layers. A braid creates traction. The tensile strength of a rope doesn’t come from any single strand—it comes from how the strands pull together, reinforcing one another. That’s what a healthy innovation ecosystem looks like. The Translation Strand The strand that makes every other strand possible — and the one most likely to be running on fumes. Walk into any tech and innovation ecosystem and ask who’s turning research into companies, founders into leaders, and ideas into paying...
about 1 month ago • 9 min read
A stack is layers. A braid creates traction. The tensile strength of a rope doesn’t come from any single strand—it comes from how the strands pull together, reinforcing one another. That’s what a healthy innovation ecosystem looks like. Nine partner types. Nine strands. Every partner type in a regional innovation ecosystem holds a distinct strand of the braid — not just financial capital, but relationship capital, market access, institutional legitimacy, talent, knowledge, narrative, and...
3 months ago • 6 min read
"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts." — William Bruce Cameron Dear Ecosystem Builders, He'd spent seven years building the regional ecosystem. Knew every partner. Could tell you the founding story of half the organizations on the list. But when a funder asked which relationships were actually moving the needle, he went quiet. Not because the work wasn't real. Because he never had a way to show it. That moment isn't a failure of one person....
4 months ago • 7 min read
"Entrepreneurial ecosystem building requires perseverance. The work is arduous and often ambiguous, and it can take 20 years to see concrete results." — Kauffman Foundation, Ecosystem Building Playbook 3.0 Hi Reader, If you feel like the ground keeps shifting under your feet, or the goal posts keep moving, you're not imagining it. We've been in a lot of rooms lately. Running workshops, facilitating sensemaking, sitting in on funder calls. We keep hearing the same things. Not complaints, more...
5 months ago • 6 min read
"The measure of intelligence is the ability to change." — Albert Einstein Welcome to the first Ecosystem Edge of 2026. To kick-start the new year, we're not making predictions. We're naming patterns. Last fall, we ran our Ecosystem Edge Scorecard with 21 ecosystem builders across the country. We asked them to assess their relationships across nine partner types and four phases of ecosystem development. No fancy software, just honest self-assessment using colored discs on a grid. The patterns...
6 months ago • 4 min read