Wikipedia identifies 20 different varieties. A Google search returns over 180M results. The word, derived from the 16th century French platte-forme meaning map, first made itself known to me in the form of a pair of (tall) shoes, and later, as a technology environment in which to learn and experiment.
In today's public policy environments, "platform" is the new black. Platforms connect voters and candidates (John Kitzhaber for Governor), government agencies and citizens (US Department of Labor on Facebook), community based organizations and volunteers (VolunteerMatch), neighbors and neighbors (PortlandNeighborhoods), and so on, with the Web serving as the underlying operating system for new modes of interacting. (Incidentally, if you are reading this, you are arguably sharing a platform with me and the Smart + Connected Communities initiative right now).
The Nature of Platforms
In January, JP Rangaswami named four dimensions of platforms at the DGREE 2010 Summit.
Purpose. Whether an airport, the stock exchange, or Facebook, platforms maintain a clear purpose that attracts people with an interest in that purpose.
Standards. Because a platform brings people together, it employs standards so that activities performed by the crowd work better for everyone. In an airport, we all have to pass through security with our appropriately-sized carry-on bags. In a social network, we share information about ourselves in order to access people and information important to us.
Participation of different kinds of entities (with different business models). A platform enables a range of activities in which different kinds of organizations and entities participate. A conference is a kind of platform, for example, where some people attend as individuals, while others attend on behalf of firms - probably paying different rates based on when they registered, whether they are sponsoring, or what they plan to do during the conference.
Action enabled by but independent of platform itself. Social networking platforms that encourage community-level action demonstrate the power of this kind of leverage everyday.
At its core, a platform is a foundation upon which we build or do other things. It's an enabling system for people to not only interact with their governments, and participate in the delivery of government services, but to actually "[reconstitute] what is a government."
Increasingly, platforms connect people (from across agencies, sectors, and geographies who might not otherwise meet), data (from anywhere or anything), services (that help people share, learn, act and measure, collaboratively), and possibility.
And that makes platform a perfect (if evolving) metaphor for the kind of foundation we need to tackle our most critical challenges and find ways to realize sustainable prosperity in communities all over the world.
