The Co.LLab™ · The operating model
Omnidirectional Enterprise™ is an economic enterprise system.
Omnidirectional Enterprise™ is an economic enterprise system that connects people, organizations, products, intellectual property, capital, and resources in one ecosystem. It is the operating model of The Co.LLab™.
How the system works
Generating value and capturing value are different processes.
Economic performance depends not only on creating value, but on the systems governing how resources are coordinated, intellectual property is owned, decisions are made, innovations reach markets, and returns are captured and reinvested.
Omnidirectional Enterprise™ is organized as nine branches, each a place where economic activity happens: Businesses, Nonprofits, Communities, People, Products & Services, Technology, Capital, Knowledge + IP, and Creators. The IV Phases™ (Foundations, Planning, Operating, and Preservation) give every branch one common way to decide and organize.
The Co.LLab™
Omnidirectional Enterprise™
Multiple pathways. One ecosystem.
What is it?
Businesses support businesses and nonprofits; communities create opportunity. Not a ladder — a network of value moving in every direction, because nobody builds alone.
- The Co.LLab™ — Leadership Infrastructure™ at the centre
- BusinessesCreate products. Generate wealth. Build solutions.
- NonprofitsAddress needs. Create change. Build stronger communities.
- CommunitiesSupport people. Create opportunity. Drive productivity.
- PeopleBring talent. Build skills. Create value.
- Products & ServicesEvery .LLab product, shopped by phase. Licensed to keep.
- TechnologyAmplifies impact. Connects resources. Expands access.
- CapitalFuels ideas. Scales solutions. Builds legacy.
- Knowledge + IPSparks innovation. Builds ownership. Creates long-term value.
- CreatorsBring ideas. Create culture. Build brands.
How to read the model
Not a ladder. A network.
At the centre is The Co.LLab™ with its Leadership Infrastructure™. Around it are nine branches: the people, organizations and resources that make up an economy. The arrows run in every direction because value does not move in one line. Businesses support businesses and nonprofits; communities create opportunity. Nobody builds alone.
Each branch has a page where you can act on it. Every branch uses The IV Phases™ as its common way to decide and organize.
Communities
Support people. Create opportunity. Drive productivity.
Technology
Amplifies impact. Connects resources. Expands access.
Knowledge + IP
Sparks innovation. Builds ownership. Creates long-term value.
Research and economic foundations
The published ideas the model builds on.
These are independent, published works in economics and management. They explain why coordination, governance, intellectual property and ecosystems matter to economic outcomes, the same questions Omnidirectional Enterprise™ is built around. The summaries are our own plain-language readings. The authors and publishers have not endorsed The Co.LLab™, and the works are not evidence that the model produces any particular result.
Ronald Coase
The Nature of the Firm
Economica, 1937
Organizations exist because using markets has costs. When coordinating inside an organization is cheaper than contracting for each piece, the organization is the better way to coordinate resources.
Oliver Williamson
The Economic Institutions of Capitalism
Free Press, 1985
How an activity is governed affects its economic result. Shared rules and clear decision rights lower the cost of working together. Williamson shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics for this line of work.
Elinor Ostrom
Governing the Commons
Cambridge University Press, 1990
Shared resources can be managed well by the people who use them, when rules, roles and monitoring are clear and the rules fit local conditions. Ostrom shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics.
David Teece
Profiting from Innovation
Research Policy, 1986
Creating an innovation and capturing its returns are different problems. Who profits depends on ownership of the idea and on the complementary assets needed to bring it to market.
Paul Romer
Endogenous Technological Change
Journal of Political Economy, 1990
Ideas, unlike physical goods, can be used by many people at once, and investment in new ideas drives long-run growth. Romer received the 2018 Nobel Prize in Economics for work on this.
Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake
Capitalism without Capital
Princeton University Press, 2017
Investment in intangible assets such as intellectual property, software, design and organizational know-how is a large and growing part of how modern economies create value, and intangibles behave differently from physical assets.
James Moore
Predators and Prey: A New Ecology of Competition
Harvard Business Review, 1993
Companies can be understood as members of business ecosystems, where participants from different sectors coevolve around shared capabilities rather than competing as isolated firms.