How can the small be big? Well we have seen how guerrilla forces have solved that paradox – they use networks to take on the large machine militaries of states.

I came to Prince Edward Island, population 140,000 in 1995 in the hope that I could find the answer ofr a society. How could a tiny state, half the size of Iceland, be a player in the world economy?

I was very lucky to find as a client a man who had the same dream and Rory and I have worked with each other – been friends, shared the ups and downs of life ever since. 12 years ago, he was the deputy minister for Agriculture. He could see that a tiny place like PEI could not hope to compete as a commodity producer in the big box world of food of our time.

One of the mad ideas that we had, was to see if there was a way that we could use our then disparate ag research community as a base to build a global capability in looking inside plants fish and animals. Could we use our knowledge rather than our land mass?

As a new comer, I had noticed that PEI had a number of labs looking into, food,  plant health, fish health, animal health – all run separately by 2 levels of government and by the university. All on their own were small and had a real struggle to get resources. All competed with each other for scarce research money. On their own, they were never going to amount to anything and in the end they would destroy each other.

We also noticed that they all were within a block of each other.

Could we form some kind of network? Could we find a mission for the network? Could we be a Chaord?

Calling this “The Belvedere Group” – the road that connects them all is called Belvedere – we got all together and had many many meetings. All thought this a great idea. It even made it into the Throne Speech – but in the end we failed. We could not get it to work.

It took several years to work out why we failed. Why when all could se the value, when all said they wanted it – why did we fail?

We failed because we missed a key part of the design of a Chaord. The organizing organization cannot be a player. The Bank of America could not have been the manager of the Visa Chaord. Visa was. Visa was a neutral body whose only role was thesupport the larger whole.

Rory’s job back then was Deputy Minister for Agriculture. He was a player. In the end the Feds, the private sector and the university could not allow another player to be in charge. It would not matter who it was – if UPEI had been in the centre, all the rest would have balked too.

Years later, we put the idea back on the table. This time Rory was an independent. This time we set up a distinct organization – The PEI BioAlliance Inc. – staff of 3 – to act as the Visa for the group. Here is the how it all looks:

Here you have the classic Natural Organization

The dense inner circle are the power partners. In this case two levels of government – the funders – nearly 30 (now) private companies, two education bodies – the outer layer of suppliers and other folks – like me! is all included.

Inc.’s job is to make all these connections work even better. Each part remains individual but is part of the whole. So a lab seeking a grant can base their position in the context of a richer environment. The Federal and Provincial Government can be at the table right from the beginning as talk bout resources begin. The barriers of understanding between the money and the labs have been reduced. The private sector has direct connections to the research and vice versa.

Common needs like how do we attract talent to a small place are dealt with on behalf of all. Here is the key story in this challenge that many small places also face. A common brand like Visa is has been built  and is being sustained.

So what are the results?

This trend continues. We could never have got the resources that we can get today if we had not found a way to act together.

So why should you care about this story?

So long as radio and TV stations see each other as being separate, they will shrink. They do not have to give up their identity to be part of something bigger.

So long as farmers see themselves as separate, they will be serfs.

So long as each division sees itself as being separate, the larger organization will die.

This is Enterprise 2.0

In my next post I will go a bit deeper and share more details of the model and how to get there?