IDEO

IDEO doesn't just design products - it operates as a brokerage topology that generates innovation through structural holes. The design consultancy positions its designers to work across disconnected industries (medical devices, consumer products, architecture), acting as brokers transferring insights between unconnected client networks. This network position - spanning structural holes between clusters - enables cross-pollination of ideas that clients within single industries can't access.

But IDEO also represents horizontal gene transfer at scale. The company originated design thinking - organizational DNA that spread across industries horizontally rather than vertically through reproduction. Like Toyota Production System and Agile, design thinking represents practices that transferred between unrelated organizations through imitation, consulting, and talent migration rather than through company offspring or acquisitions.

The lesson: innovation often comes from brokerage positions that connect disconnected knowledge clusters. IDEO's value isn't design skill (though they have it) - it's network position. By systematically working across industries, the firm accesses non-redundant information that industry specialists can't see. The company monetizes structural holes: the gaps between industries where valuable knowledge transfer is possible but rare.