Innovation Networks - Solving the Research and Development Pipeline Gap

Context - Protocol Labs

This essay is a reaction to content primarily coming from Protocol Labs to anchor broader thoughts on how to build innovation on top of crypto-first infrastructure.

The Innovation Challenge

There's a critical gap in the R&D pipeline - the chasm between breakthrough research and scalable technology. This gap isn't just a tactical challenge; it represents a strategic blocker to solving humanity's most pressing problems:

Without improving the innovation pipeline earlier in the stage, these major issues may not be adequately addressed.

Our Mandate

The Protocol Labs Network of 600+ organizations drives breakthroughs in computing to push humanity forward through three core missions:

  1. Secure the Internet and Digital Human Rights Create censorship-resistant and privacy-oriented infrastructure that enshrines human rights directly in our computing technologies
  2. Upgrade Economic and Governance Systems Build better coordination systems to address planetary-scale challenges that current organizational structures cannot solve
  3. Drive Breakthroughs in Frontier Computing Advance technologies like AI, virtual/augmented reality, robotics, and brain-computer interfaces to expand human capabilities while ensuring safe development

Existing Solutions

The pillars for PL Infrastructure include: Projects, Teams, Capital, Talent, and Programs.

There are existing support services to take into context, such as live events, membership, funding, talent networks, and marketing.

LabOS is a product suite that contains a directory, an events portal, and a forum.

The Product Vision

LabOS is an autonomous orchestration layer that leverages the social and interest graph to accelerate innovation throughout the network by: fostering the exchange of research-driven insights; driving collaborative interactions; and enabling user-led problem-solving.

Network Participants & Their Needs

Researchers & Scientists

Lead Users & Domain Experts

Project Teams and Members

Network Coordinators

The Metric

The end result is increased funding earlier in the pipeline. So the ultimate metric is to see the amount of funding in that stage (via Blue Funds) increase.

However, a meaningful percentage of those funds appear to come from successful Green Funds; and within the VC funding world, this is often 10 years or more.

This means that at shorter-term leading indicator needs to be identified to lead to this.

Based on the above metrics, the question for the product, if it is scoped to the platform and social graph, is what is the contribution of the social graph to the basic research innovation?

The Current Solution - PL Infrastructure

The pillars for PL Infrastructure include: Projects, Teams, Capital, Talent, and Programs.

The sample initiatives include a Directory, Talent Network, Builder Network, a funding mechanism for PL Infra (Blue Fund), and a platform called Spacesport (now LabOS?).

LabOS is a product suite that contains a directory, an events portal, and a forum. Each of these have their own product leads. (?)

ProtoSphere Network Forum

Based on the public, unauthenticated access, the forum appears to have the last entry 8 months ago, and around 20 primary posts.

The roadmap includes breakout groups and live chat, but these aren't visible to me.

Office Hours

This feature was designed to increase the sharing of knowledge and to provide mentorship across stages of development in the network.

The current usage is X.

Directory

The directory displays basic profile information for about 1320 people. It requires a login for more advanced filtering, such as by region

Program: Marketing

There appears to be a marketing hub where founders can gain visibility across existing channels.

The current usage is X.

My analysis

Define success and its proxy metrics

The large problem of improving innovation was missing a clear definition of success that can be tracked through proxy metrics. As noted above, the actual success metric is the funding of basic research that leads to breakthroughs, probably scaled out products, in emerging tech, in governance and economic design, and digital human rights.

My lessons

At the Graph, a large amount of time was spent aligning out of my core team, which was the co-founder, the product peers, the CTOs of the other core devs, and the foundation; to get legacy engineers, the new CEO, and the head of product to shift to what success meant and the proxy metrics.

Proxy metrics and success definition wrangling is one of the highest leverage things that can be done for coordination; and it needs skill, patience, empathy, and real support to get there.

At the Linux Foundation, I had CEO-level support of what the core metric and core vision; but I learned that's not enough. While we built the things, it was bumpy because the proxy metrics, the vision of what was the purpose of the product suite, wasn't fully aligned, and this caused friction in some parts. Underlying success was able to be achieved mostly by finessing common ground -- for example, it was a huge battle to get a global ID and profile in place -- but I linked this to a common ground goal and we got it through to unlock.

So the lesson here is very clear written, revisiting the metric and outcomes regularly, and singular agreement of purpose, success and metric.

How I would do it

To me, the real success is a pretty long time-horizon. The first real signal would be a completed cycle of basic research driving liquidity event and back. This is a long cycle.

However, we need shorter feedback loops and a mental model of what will drive success.

Currently, the innovation network has 600 members, but on a day to day, week to week, quarter to quarter basis, what signifies network-fostered innovation?

We need a common definition of the model of Innovation Networks.

To me, the open innovation is best based on von Hippel's work of lead users, who are ahead of the market, sometimes innovate themselves, and give away their innovations as public goods.

If we can align that lead user innovation is important, then one model and resulting metric is the recruitment and activity of lead users, which can include academic users, patients, and hobbyists.

To me, a metric geared around the level of engagement and acquisition of lead users is indicative of the health of the innovation network.

Once the model and the objective function of the network has been established -- innovations that serve the needs of lead users -- the collaborative health and density of the network can be encouraged.

The second is the metric or metrics we can rally around that are good leading proxy metrics.

Story

At The Graph, I proposed that we should have as a true north star metric marketshare of blockchain queries of smart contracts.

The head of product disagreed and wanted something more tangible, specifically the fees generated; but the other product managers, co-founder, and data-team believed that a marketshare metric, even if it were approximated, was a better metric.

Why did he prefer the fees?

First, he preferred accuracy instead of ambiguity; and I believe that real scope and leadership is entering a more holistic playing field that includes competition, market conditions, etc.

Second, his prior product initiative lost 90% of transaction activity; a marketshare metric would not move the needle; whereas a net new fee would still go up and to the right thanks to net new and the remaining 10%.

In the end, after the head of product left, the co-founder and I were able to get support of the data team on a marketshare based north star metric.

However, we never got full support. The reason is the CEO's own metric would show a loss since she lost a customer who represented 60% of transaction fees, and so this needed to be slow rolled.

The lesson here is metrics can be misleading, metrics reveals hidden agendas, and I've learned the best thing often is to really go slow, surface people's real agendas, and also to get comfortable that the data is the truth and it is organizational leadership to get to the right metric....and know that metrics change and evolve.

We can't be a slave to metrics; but we can't be a slave to individuals' agendas or optics, either.

My Observation

It looks like there is a good long-term mission that is clearly stated.

Then there's software which looks like a "feature" was defined -- directory, events, forums.

To me....something is missing, and from my experience when working across decentralized teams and platforms -- that something is the most important thing to get.

My gut sense, my product sense, just looking at these features says that these aren't really being used, and from watching probably 20 hours worth of the videos, that something hasn't been actively discussed given that I think it can ultimately be the backbone of the innovation network.

One of the things is the model of innovation -- what does good innovation look like? Do we have a mental model of the goal?

The second is whom are we really building it for? And what pain and problem do we solve for them?

Intro

I'm super excited because I think what you're doing is the third iteration of what I've been working on since the Linux Foundation and The Graph. Both want to enable decentralized coordination via software, but with different underlying objectives.

The PL Network wants is fundamentally different from both of them despite the similarities; and I think there's more to learn by what was hard and difficult in both of them than what delivered because the goals were different, but the obstacles I believe are the same.

Would you be open to me diving into my analysis of the product and the network, and along the way, I will try to tell stories about what I did, but really focus on framing the problem and my approach?

So I understand the principle, the science/technology gap and the focus areas of innovation.

It seems like this was the goal, 600 companies are part of the network, and then this software was built with a directory, forum, network portal. But when I use them....something feels....like the adoption would be low. And they aren't driving the real end-goal, which should be innovation.

I'm going to stop there because I don't want to be calling anybody's baby ugly, but I do feel framing the real problem is useful because I've been down this path.

So I think the question is who will use it and why?

The reason why I ask this is because at the Linux Foundation, we faced a similar challenge of being honest and having a shared view of who the real customer and user was.

The real value served the business model: BD for membership, events, and training programs. The ancillary value was primarily a way to ask people to become members because that was the revenue model.

What am I good at?

I help companies to get alignment and agreement on success, extract insights from different parts of the organization, and allow innovation and domain expertise to thrive on a single goal.