By Ken Rosen
Until 2006, the waters 22.5 miles off the coast of Pensacola Florida were like most coastal waters: empty—a wet desert. It wasn’t dead, but you weren’t likely to see Florida’s popular snapper or amberjack patrolling the waters, let alone a mini-industry of divers and fisherman out for a weekend thrill. Then it all changed.

The navy, at the request of the state if Florida, sunk the 888 ft U.S.S. Oriskany, creating what punsters now call “The Great Carrier Reef,” the world’s biggest artificial reef.

I love this. Artificial reefs are among my favorite topics, but my interest is making Artificial Reefs for people. 

What’s the world’s biggest Artificial Reef to me? Las Vegas. Parched desert converted via loose zoning, loose investors, loose gamblers, and, yes, a few “loose professionals” into a multi-billion dollar mecca.  Florida’s Disneyworld, with its lower-key ecosystem of hotels, alligator parks, bird sanctuaries, and Pizza Huts comes close. And the Dubai Waterfront in the UAE gets a nod for audacity.

The key defining characteristic of an Artificial Reef is something built from nothing which gathers its own ecosystem of ventures created by other people. That is, a Reef starts as a decision by a single person or organization and spawns hundreds of decisions by unrelated people.

And smaller Artificial Reefs (or just Reefs) attract us every day: Faneuil Hall in Boston, The Ferry Building in San Francisco, The Mall of America in Minnesota.

But wait, Reefs can get even smaller. Have you ever been amazed at the instant multi-party commerce that pop-ups up when a city creates a weekly flea market? Or farmers’ market?

So what’s the connection to executive decision making? Success is not random. But success is not (yet) a science. You can turn assets into Reefs, but success factors are many: sufficient audience, response to a conscious or subconscious need, ability to make the experience worthwhile even before others build the rest of the ecosystem, a coherent vision to ignite the imaginations of other investors, early success to give your vision credibility, and opportunities for others to expand on your execution without killing your vision. And that’s just the start.

Reef creation is sensitive business. As we discussed before, failure can come from either the concept or the execution, and after the dust clears, even reasonable people will argue about the cause. Carrying the metaphor further, have you ever set up an aquarium? It’s quite literally a tiny Artificial Reef…tiny. Yet the delicate balance of plants, animals, air flow, temperature, chemicals, food, and light can make your head spin. Make no mistake: when you choose to create a Reef, you are taking a god-like role creating an environment for your success and that of all  who follow. It is one of the ultimate “multi-period games.”

For this first discussion, I focused on places which bring us together. “Reef as Place” is easiest to discuss. But our Artificial Reef definition includes more: The New York subway system, Paris Metro, or the German Autobahn create opportunities by putting new destinations within reach. Products like Apple’s iPod, SalesForce’s AppExchange, or Facebook’s APIs for third-parties create industry and opportunity. But that’s for another day.

We’ll talk more about this in the future, but for now…our Takeaways.

Takeaways

  • Break your expectations about how your assets can be used. Sure, most of your spending extends your current business, but open space—whether physical or in your mind—offers new opportunity.
  • When you create a new initiative—a new product line, business, or physical location—leave room for others to build, profit, and thrive.
  • Treat your new initiative as a system, not a product. Your goal is to create a growing environment for life—for your businesses and that of others. So you need to think about the flow of ingredients, not a single point in time.