Orange Institute, a global research co-laboratory open to all, explores how rapidly mutating physical, knowledge and social networks are transforming society and its economy, enterprises and institutions


The Orange Institute, a global research and conversation platform, held its inaugural session this week in San Francisco, California. The three-day workshop, which took place at the Orange Labs facility in San Francisco and the Stanford University campus, brought together a select group of senior business and policy leaders from companies and organizations from Europe, the US, China and Japan to explore and discuss how our society, companies and the economy are mutating into networks that increasingly depend on their ability to innovate.

The creation of the Orange Institute is triggered by the exponential growth and influence of global networks: physical, informational and social. Its ambition is to inspire a global conversation about how networks of all kinds are amplifying human potential and illuminating how we see the world, and each other.

The Orange Institute proposes to discuss how these new network dynamics are transforming virtually every aspect of our lives. Its ambition is to build a research community in which senior executives, entrepreneurs, researchers and policy-makers from across the world can freely explore and exchange ideas. By joining the platform, they will discover and apply these new network models, providing them with new ways to transform their organizations.

The Institute is itself designed as a network of research and collaboration nodes spread across different geographies and cultures, with a plan that calls for additional nodes to bring the network research community together in 2010 in Asia and Europe. This will enable members to make new connections that will drive personal transformation, and yield powerful concepts and practices valuable to their companies and organizations.

Over the three-day workshop, participants were able to take part in a series of discussion threads on themes such as collective production and social knowledge, the impact of design on behavior, and ways to channel the flow of information. Among the keynote speakers, the world-renowned and influential thinker, John Hagel III, who has authored several well-known books on management practices, addressed participants. Also, based on his recent book, "Connected", Dr. James Fowler took the group to a deeper understanding of social network dynamics, as well as the math and the psychology behind them.

In addition, Orange Labs San Francisco has released an initial research paper entitled the “Coming of Porous Enterprise”, documenting how the traditional concept of corporate identity is changing. The paper identifies a trend  indicating that the traditional boundaries of companies are becoming increasingly ‘porous’, enabling them to interact much better with potential partners, communities of interest and consumers, as well as with employees. The research was used during a three-day workshop as a platform for further discussions and experience sharing.

According to Georges Nahon, CEO of the Orange Labs in San Francisco and President of the Orange Institute: “New networks of all kinds are evolving at a surprising rate, bringing people together from multiple areas and creating value in ways that would never have been possible in the past world of linear networks. Most people are impacted by the power of networks even more than they realize. Orange Institute was founded on the belief that today’s networks, although rooted in the traditional infrastructure provided by telecoms operators, have taken on a life of their own. For the first time, networks have the potential to evolve iteratively based on users’ interests and relationships through a growing spectrum of technologies and collective practices.”


For more information and to read the research paper “Coming of Porous Enterprise”, go to www.orange.com/institute