I believe any environment where people and technology coexist could be viewed as an ecosystem, made up of factors and elements that will be common across all such ecosystems.
If you have one person who has a Mac and an iPhone and who works out of a Starbucks, the ecosystem elements will be similar to those found in an office that has 25 people with two Macs each, a server, iPhones, and a bunch of web systems in use.
On the surface, you’re just dealing with some pieces of hardware, some software, the people, and a physical location.
When you look more closely and start asking questions, however, there’s a lot more going on.
Some of the elements universal to any ecosystem (and I’m sure there are more I’m not thinking of):
- What each person wants (or needs) to do; in general, in terms of what results they want to achieve in life or work
- The knowledge and understanding of each person; how well they can navigate the ecosystem and control its elements
- The desire of each person to learn (or not) and to increase their level of control in the ecosystem (or not)
- The maximum functionality of the current technology; its limits and boundaries
- How the technology is currently being used
- What other technology options are available that may better serve the needs of the people
- The physical locations from which the people will use systems; home, office, abroad
- How the technology will be used in the future; considering the ever-growing needs of the people
- What it takes to keep everything running smoothly in terms of maintenance or prevention
Lastly, possibly the most important part of the ecosystem and something far too many consultants miss (and this is something the client may not know until all the work is done):
- Their experience of the system; how they feel when using it. Their mood, their stress level, their desire to explore and learn. Their feeling of calm, and their emotional capacity to produce.
If you can nail that one while doing well with all the other factors, you will always be successful and the client will be happy. If you fail to provide that quality of experience, even if you aced all the other factors it will never be good enough and they will always be less than pleased.
How do you measure your success in helping the ecosystem flourish with all factors considered? There’s only one way: Feedback.
