The Assets of Ecosystems

”Assets” is the generic term for the different people, resources, organizations, events, jobs, and news that make up a an ecosystem. In common language, they are the “things” within an ecosystem, and formally, they are the “nodes” in an ecosystem’s network.

There’s a few reasons why we use the term Asset instead of “thing”, “node”, or referring to the types of assets individually (organizations, resources, people, etc). First off, using “thing” as a core part of a definition is typically frowned upon in any field, for good reason - it’s simply not descriptive enough to help people understand what the ‘unit of analysis’ is. So as much as we love to use ‘thing’ as a casual way to describe assets, for a formal definition, it doesn’t make the cut.

“Node”, on the other hand, is actually a term borrowed from network theory, which means “a point at which lines or pathways intersect or branch; a central or connecting point.” Under this definition, an asset that has no connection (relationship with) to any other assets is not considered a node within the network. In the real world, it is possible (but rather rare and temporary) for there to be an asset that is part of an ecosystem that has no relationships to other assets within the ecosystem. We use “node” casually because most people understand the idea of “nodes and edges”, but we prefer Asset as a formal definition because it isn’t weighed down with prior definitions, and is all together more descriptive.

Finally, we don’t refer to assets using their individual types (People, Resources, Organization, etc) for a few reasons. First, it just takes too long, especially when you have to include all of the types of possible assets. Each type of asset - however different they are in structure or composition - fills similar roles within an ecosystem, so when talking about the structure of an ecosystem, there isn’t much use to referring to them separately. But mostly, “Asset” is the most comprehensive term for what these things are - “useful and valuable things”.

So what are these ‘useful and valuable’ things within an ecosystem? We have two categories of Assets: Primary Assets, which represent the Organizations, Resources, and People, and Secondary Assets, which represent Jobs, News, and Events. Let’s look at each.

Primary Assets represent the core things within an ecosystem, including:

1. Organizations - the incorporated entities or well-defined but unincorporated groups that make up an ecosystem
2. Resources - the different programs, tools, and physical objects that exist within an ecosystem or are provided by organizations
3. People - the individuals who exist in the ecosystems, who may be a part of an organization, oversee a resource, etc

Primary Assets tend to be persistent (they last a long time), categorizable (you can bucket them into known categories), and influential (their existence has a measurable impact on the composition of an ecosystem. In contrast, Secondary Assets are transient (their importance is time-bound), smaller, and generally less influential to the ecosystem.

Secondary Assets include:

1. Jobs - the different Opportunities that exist within the ecosystem for work or engagement
2. Events - a planned, time-bound gathering that is related to, or involves other assets from, the ecosystem
3. News - information about what is happening within the ecosystem

Secondary Assets only exist through the actions of, or interactions between, Primary Assets — Events are put on by multiple Organizations or People, Jobs are offered by Organizations and filled by People, News is about Organizations or Resources or People, etc. Because of this, Secondary Assets are much more numerous than Primary Assets - a single Organization could offer 500 Jobs, one Resource could host 10 events each year, etc.

The difference between Primary and Secondary Assets is important mostly when it comes to Ecosystem Mapping and defining the key “players” within an ecosystem, where Primary Assets are the main focus. However, gathering information about Secondary Assets is what’s needed to create things such as Job Boards, Community Events Calendars, and collective News Feeds - so even though they are smaller than Primary Assets, Secondary Assets still plat a really big role within any given ecosystem.

In all, we have six Types of Assets: People, Resources, Organizations, Events, News, and Jobs. Each of these six Asset Types have a variety of different Subtypes. It would take a whole book to explain all of the different Subtypes and Keyword Categories that relate to each type of Asset, so we’ll focus on an overview of the Primary Assets for the rest of this article.

Organizations

Organizations are the various incorporated entities (and rarely, formal and defined but unincorporated groups) that exist within an ecosystem. There are three subtypes of Organizations: Ventures, Resource Providers, and Service Providers.

• Ventures - the various startups, small businesses, nonprofits, and other ventures within an ecosystem
• Resource Providers - organizations that support ventures as part of their edict (such as Entrepreneur Support Orgs)
• Service Providers - organizations that administer professional services for a fee to other organizations or individuals

An Organization can have multiple subtypes - for example, you can have a Venture that is also a Service Provider, or a Service Provider who is also a Resource Provider. Additionally, the Subtype of an Organization can vary based on the ecosystem under analysis - what might be a Venture in one ecosystem (like EcoMap is in the AI & Machine Learning industry) could be a Resource Provider in another (like EcoMap is in Baltimore’s innovation community), and more of a Service Provider in another (as we are in the industries we work within).

In addition to these Subtypes, there are a variety of Keyword Categories that are applied to Organizations, including:

• Org Category: For Profit, Non-Profit, Governmental
• Entity Type: C-Corp, LLC, Partnership, etc
• Org Type: Growth Startup, Main Street Businesses, Governmental Agency, etc.

These Keywords are just a few of hundreds of Keywords and dozens of Keyword Types used to describe Organizations within various types of ecosystems.

Resources

Resources are the different programs, tools, and physical objects that are available to members of an ecosystem or provided by Organizations within that ecosystem. They are different from Organizations in that they are typically not separate incorporated entities, and they are provided by one or more Organizations. In most cases, Resources do not have their own websites (but are rather a subpage on an Organization’s website) and are overseen by a subset of people from one or more Organizations.

Resources include things such as Funding Sources, Tax Credits, Event Calendars, Workshop Series, Degree Programs, Online Guides, etc - we have nearly 100 different Resource Type keywords. Just like Organizations, Resources are an expansive category, and the types of resources & their characteristics vary between different types of ecosystems

Here are some ways that Resources relate to Organizations:

In this example, one Organization provides 3 different Resources

• Organization: Entrepreneur Support Incorporated (ESI)
• Resources Provided: The ESI 0-1 Program (an Incubator), the ESI Resource Guide (a digital guide), the ESI Pitch Off (an annual Pitch Competition) etc

In this example, one Organization provides 1 Resource

• Organization: Venture Capital Capitalists
• Resource Provided: Venture Capital Capitalists Investment (Venture Funding)

Finally, in this example, multiple Organizations provide 1 Resource

• Organization(s): Entrepreneur Support Incorporated, The Funding Foundation
• Resource: The ESI Scale Program (an Accelerator), which is provided by ESI, but funded by The Funding Foundation

People

People are, well, the people who are involved in the ecosystem. Every Organization is made up of People, People run certain types of Resources, and People act as key mentors, advisors, employees, and advocates throughout an ecosystem.

People are unique among the Primary Assets in that they tend to span many more ecosystems than a Resource or Organization might, and they often play dramatically different roles within those ecosystems. Additionally, People can be transient within an ecosystem - the CEO of a large ecosystem Organization would be a key Person in that ecosystem, but if they left the role and moved out state, they are now less material to the ecosystem.

At the end of the day, all Assets within an ecosystem are created, run, and utilized by People, making them perhaps the most important type of Asset within the ecosystem. However, in the process of Ecosystem Mapping, gathering information about People can be fraught - many individuals don’t love their personal information being scraped and put into a database, and there are so many people that you can’t collect data on all of them. In general, the best practice is to identify the core leaders of ecosystem Organizations, and then reach out to them and ask if they are alright being included in any public-facing ecosystem map.

When it comes to the Secondary Assets, there is not much to saw about Jobs, Events, and News - their abundance, function, form, and influence within any ecosystem is largely dependent on the type of ecosystem, it’s stage of development, and the characteristics that define it. So now, we turn our attention to the next fundamental part of an ecosystem - the Relationships that bind it together.

‍