Exploring the Strategic Value of Interdisciplinary Collaboration:

COINs in the Creation of Business

Saad Aqeel Alzarooni, R Wade Campbell, Yushi Wang, Christine Z. Miller

Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD)

This paper presents insights from a group collaboration venture among

three design management students and faculty members at The Savannah
College of Art and Design. The purpose of the paper is to propose a
framework that integrates design thinking, the Business Model Canvas
(Osterwalder and Pigneur 2010), and Collaborative Innovation Networks
(COINs) (Gloor 2006) to visualize a model that leverages the internal
relationships as well as external networks to achieve strategic business
objectives. This approach is central to current trends of inclusion and
participatory design. By integrating ethnographic research tools, current
trends in business model creation, and the principles of social network
analysis, the paper highlights the value of interdisciplinary collaboration in
business model development. Through using the “multiple lenses”
approach that is central to design management, the results of the study
establish the importance of context not only to the creation of the business
model but also to visualizing the trajectory of the business itself.

Keywords: interdisciplinary collaboration, design thinking, business

models, collaborative innovation networks

Download copies of COINs 2009 research and industry papers at

ScienceDirect.

Link: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/issue/59087-2010-999979995-
2182758

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, Volume 2, Issue 4, The 1st

Collaborative Innovation Networks Conference - COINs2009. Edited by
Kenneth Riopelle, Peter Gloor, Christine Miller and Julia Gluesing.

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The COINs 2010 conference, Oct. 7–9, 2010, is presented by I-Open and
the COINs Collaborative, an initiative of the Savannah College of Art and
Design, Wayne State University College of Engineering Department of
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of Technology Center for Collective Intelligence. The collaborative builds
open knowledge networks to advance the emerging science of
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