Hi,
Welcome to a special issue of Platform Thinkers Spritz.

Today, we’re taking a break from our usual focus on digital technologies to explore a different view on the world of platforms.

What if the core of the platform mechanism were… people?
How can physical places become platforms?
How can humans act as matchmakers?
And how can value creation be driven not by algorithms — but by a shared sense of purpose?

In our research team, Silvia Gadola, PhD candidate at the School of Management of Politecnico di Milano, has been exploring this fascinating idea through her work on Unconventional Platforms — a stream of research that will soon see its first publications.

Today, though, we want to share a story that comes directly from our own experience.
Two years ago — thanks to a few serendipitous moments (yes, ring a bell, Christian Busch) and the generosity of Kaihan Krippendorff — we had the chance to step into the Thinkers50 world.

Two years later, we’re heading back to London: part of the Radar Class 2024, and with a nomination for the Digital Thinking Award for The Digital Phoenix Effect.

But more important than the awards is what happened in between.
Over these two years, we’ve met extraordinary people through this human and physical platform — people like Marshall Van Alstyne, Geoff Parket, Alexander Osterwalder, Rita McGrath, Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez, Jin Chen, Sangeet Paul Choudary, Mark Greeven, Elisa Farri & Gabriele Rosani, Faisal Hoque, Ruth Gotian, Kate O’Neill, Aidan McCullen (The Innovation Show), Giuseppe Stigliano, Cristina Alaimo, Dan Pontefract, Cristiano Bellucci and many others.

We’ll meet some of them again tonight at the #Thinkers50RadarMeetUpDinner — which someone beautifully described as a physical platform.
And that’s exactly where this story begins: with a chapter we wrote for Connectedness, the new Thinkers50 book curated by Des Dearlove, that inspired this special issue.

We’ll unpack this story through three questions:

1. How does a community become a platform?

2. What makes a human platform work?

3. What can digital platforms learn from it?

We’re off to London. See you soon!

Daniel & Tommaso

Share

From Digital Transactions to Human Connections

We usually think of platforms as digital — apps, algorithms, and data-driven ecosystems. Spotify, Amazon, Uber, Airbnb: they shape the way we move, buy, and interact.

But Platform Thinking isn’t about technology. It’s about how value is created through connections.

Platforms are business models built on two key ingredients:

1. Two or more interdependent groups (think hosts and guests on Airbnb), and

2. Cross-side network effects, where the activity of one group increases value for the other.

In short, platforms thrive when interactions create value for everyone involved.

This model — known as a transactional platform — aims to reduce friction between sides, make matching efficient, and build trust through reviews, payments, and shared rules. Airbnb, for example, protects transactions, manages payments, and builds community around its vision of “Belong Anywhere.”

And yet, the idea of a platform predates the Internet by millennia. The first Persian markets, 3,000 years ago, were already physical platforms: places where merchants and buyers gathered, amplifying each other’s value.

Digital technologies didn’t invent platforms — they simply made them scale faster.

So here’s the question:
If platforms are really about connections, could people themselves become platforms?

1. When a ranking becomes a movement

To explore this, let’s look at Thinkers50, the organization founded by Des Dearlove and Stuart Crainer in 2001 to identify and share the most influential management ideas in the world.

At the time, managers were drowning in business books and buzzwords. “We wanted to shine a light on the good stuff,” recalls Des, “to help managers tell the nuggets from the fool’s gold.”

What started as a ranking soon became something much bigger.
Thinkers50 didn’t just list great minds — it connected them.
Authors, scholars, and executives began to meet, collaborate, and build a community united by a shared purpose: to make management thinking a force for good.

As Stuart says, “We originally created the ranking to help managers identify the best ideas. What we didn’t expect was how much people valued being part of a community.”

Over time, publishers, business schools, and event organizers joined in.
They weren’t there to sell ideas — they wanted to amplify them.
Thinkers50 had evolved into a platform where thinkers and partners — the “Amplifiers” — could meet, collaborate, and spread insight across audiences.

And soon, a new kind of participant arrived: companies and leaders eager to apply those ideas in real life. They became the Doers.

That’s when Thinkers50 crossed the invisible line from community to human platform.
It connected three sides — Thinkers, Amplifiers, and Doers — creating value through relationships, not transactions.

2. The win-win-win equation

In digital platforms, scale is everything.
More users mean more data, more matches, and more value.
But in human platforms, the opposite can be true: meaning grows from depth, not numbers.

The Thinkers50 ecosystem expanded globally, but its strength remained rooted in its culture of generosity and trust.

Des and Stuart didn’t just manage the community — they curated it.
They introduced people who could inspire each other, suggested collaborations, and nurtured ideas that might not have met otherwise.

When Monika Kosman joined in 2019, she brought a fresh perspective, helping the team grow while keeping the same spirit alive.

Their secret? A simple principle: “It only works if it’s win, win, win.”

• A Thinker wins by spreading ideas.

• A Doer wins by turning those ideas into action.

• And society wins when better management creates better organizations — and better lives.

That’s the essence of a purpose-driven platform.
Business results may follow, but they’re not the main goal — they’re the by-product of a healthy ecosystem built on human connection.

3. From value proposition to culture

Every successful digital platform starts with a strong value proposition: what’s in it for each side?

Airbnb promises you can “Belong Anywhere.” Spotify helps you “soundtrack your life.”

But in human platforms, value propositions aren’t enough.
What holds the ecosystem together isn’t a promise — it’s a culture.

Culture defines how people behave when no one is watching.
It’s not written in an app’s interface, but embodied by its members.

In Thinkers50, that culture was shaped by its founders and early thinkers — from Michael Porter and Clayton Christensen to Amy Edmondson — and kept alive by the next generation through the Radar Class.

It’s a culture that celebrates curiosity, collaboration, and generosity.
A culture fragile enough to require constant care — but powerful enough to self-sustain once it’s lived and shared.

4. From algorithms to human facilitation

In digital ecosystems, algorithms do the matchmaking.
Spotify suggests your next song. Amazon recommends what to buy.

In human platforms, people play that role.
Des and Stuart are not just connectors — they’re human matchmakers. They know who might spark a great conversation, who could collaborate, who might inspire.

At the Thinkers50 Gala, there’s no algorithm to decide who sits next to whom.
The magic happens through intentional facilitation — a spark, a suggestion, a handshake.

And that’s precisely the difference.
Algorithms optimize for efficiency.
Humans optimize for meaning.

The variables they work with — trust, empathy, curiosity, generosity — can’t be coded.

5. From digital scale to human depth

If digital platforms taught us how to scale connections, human platforms teach us how to deepen them.

Thinkers50 reminds us that when platforms become less about transactions and more about relationships, they unlock a new kind of value — the kind that can’t be measured in clicks, but in impact.

In the end, platforms — digital or human — are just lenses to see the world through.
They help us understand how people, ideas, and organizations create value together.

And sometimes, when the algorithms step aside, what’s left is the most powerful platform of all: the one powered by purpose, curiosity, and human connection.

That’s when a platform truly becomes win-win-win.

See you next week for a double episode. The interview from our podcast Talking About Platforms with Sangeet Paul Choudary introducing #Reshuffle and the second episode of the cases from The Digital Phoenix Effect.

Get your copy of the book