Making space for grief in ecosystem work doesn’t mean becoming mired in loss. It means honoring the emotional dimension of change—acknowledging that relationships, trust, and shared purpose are not disposable. We don’t need grand rituals. But we do need intentional practices: Naming what has ended, even briefly; Acknowledging what mattered about it; Letting people step back or take space, without stigma; Creating space for reflection before launching into what’s next. These practices signal care—for the work, and for the people doing it. They help us build systems that are not only productive but humane.

In higher education, we often equate “translation” with commercialization—and commercialization with patents and licenses. But that frame can be too narrow. It tends to privilege the high-dollar discoveries of R1 labs and sidelines the powerful contributions of educators, other social scientists, humanities scholars, designers, and community-engaged researchers. What we need is a broader orientation—one that sees value in many forms of impact and invites more people to see themselves as contributors. What if we were to widen our lens on translation from “technology transfer” alone to a broader effort at “knowledge transfer”? What if we created a culture of something bigger: the movement of ideas across boundaries—from research to real-world application, from classrooms to communities, from insights to action.

If you’re stuck in a loop, it doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It might mean you’ve discovered a paradox. Here are a few ways to approach it: Name it. Just identifying a paradox can reduce frustration and surface new ways forward; Visualize the tension. Use polarity maps or diagrams to show how both sides of the paradox support the system; Co-create strategy across difference. Bring in multiple perspectives—not to collapse the paradox, but to hold it more fully; Experiment, reflect, adapt. The way through is often not a single solution, but a rhythm of trying, learning, and adjusting. Paradox becomes livable when we shift from fixing to facilitating.

What struck me most was that even as people role-played stressful conversations, they were laughing, leaning in, and listening more deeply than most real-world meetings ever allow. The Rivertown simulation reminded me: conversation isn’t just a tool for collaboration—it’s where collaboration takes root. This idea echoed across the InBIA ICBI39 conference in Philadelphia (check out the agenda for details about the sessions I reference here). Over and over, I saw that ecosystem building is fundamentally relational work. Whether the topic was rural resilience, inclusive capital, or scaling good jobs, the throughline was clear: ecosystems grow through the quality of their conversations.

A renewal mindset doesn’t mean starting over. It means noticing what’s been dormant. It means creating conditions for energy to return—sometimes in familiar ways, sometimes in entirely new ones. It means paying attention to where the system feels stuck or tired, and inviting breath, movement, and light. Our ecosystems are complex, human-centered systems. And like people, they go through seasons. There are moments of building, of thriving, and of course, of decline or rest. Renewal is what connects those moments. It’s what keeps the system alive and adaptive.

An expertise-led approach to ecosystem building tends to focus on assets. Universities and other actors in the ecosystem come to the table with perspectives like these: Here’s what we know. Here’s what we can do. Here’s the technology we’ve developed. This is important and valuable work—central to advancing the research mission of the institution. At the same time, this approach can inadvertently reinforce silos, centering individual institutions or organizations rather than the network—focusing on what each party has to offer rather than how they’re connected.

There is value in collaborators achieving individual and independent goals, but some of the goals need to be shared for coordinated work to happen. Shared goals stimulate shared identity and shared effort. They grease the skids of collaboration. But you can't just put some goals up on a whiteboard, or write them into an MOU, call them shared goals, and dive in. Like everything in collaboration, shared goals require care and feeding. Here are three things you can do to nurture and sustain those goals.

Innovation may be one of the most overused words of the last five decades. We are awash in innovation, and people and organizations everywhere are striving to be innovative. But there doesn't appear to be a lot of agreement on just what innovation is. Definitions include a variety of characteristics including creativity, value creation, and more.

My work focuses on how organizations work together effectively. In particular, I spend a lot of time helping universities and their partners in economic and community development improve their collaborations. Effective collaboration takes a lot more than this brief list, but these elements are central, and attention to them from the outset can lead to better outcomes.

I've recently been reading Social Chemistry: Decoding the Patterns of Human Connection. The author, Yale professor Marissa King, details the ways in which we grow and maintain our networks, and the different kinds of patterns that have emerged in her research. King describes three different kinds of networkers—expansionists, brokers, and conveners—and describes how the networking patterns of these types shape networks in different ways and lead to different kinds of networking outcomes. Read the book to learn more, or head to Assess Your Network for immediate gratification.

I recently came across Systems Convening: A  crucial form of leadership for the 21st century, by Etienne and Beverly Wenger-Trayner. I discovered that a name had been given to what I feel like I’ve been doing for most of my professional life—systems convening. According to the Wenger-Trayners, systems conveners “…spot opportunities for creating new learning spaces and partnership that will bring different and often unlikely people together to engage in learning across boundaries.” I have considered myself a boundary spanner throughout my career, and this book helped me see more clearly the collaboration and learning purposes that have been at the heart of my systems convening.

The Venn diagram of talent, innovation, and place—from which Venn University draws its name—suggests that there are three spheres we need to operate in to build local, regional and national economies and to create prosperity for all.