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The Interaction Field: The Revolutionary New Way to Create Shared Value for Businesses, Customers, and Society
Learn how the most successful businesses are creating value and igniting smart growth in a fast-paced, competitive market.Most businesses today focus on competition and disruption instead of collaboration, participation, and engagement. They focus on transactions instead of interactions. They seek to optimize or extract value rather than share it. They build assets and thrive on enormous scale, huge distribution networks, and brand recognition. But then along comes a rival that doesn't care much about your brand and your other assets, and it either rushes past you or mows you down.In The Interaction Field, management expert and professor Erich Joachimsthaler explains that the only way to thrive in this environment is through the Interaction Field model. Companies who embrace this model generate, facilitate, and benefit from data exchanges among multiple people and groups -- from customers and stakeholders, but also from those you wouldn't expect to be in the mix, like suppliers, software developers, regulators, and even competitors. And everyone in the field works together to solve big, industry-wide, or complex and unpredictable societal problems.The future is going to be about creating value for everyone. Businesses that solve immediate challenges of people today and also the major social and economic challenges of the future are the ones that will survive and grow.
240 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 15, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 30, 2025
A big idea that needed tighter writing.
The Interaction Field introduces a compelling idea: businesses that thrive in the future won’t just run pipelines or platforms — they’ll build open ecosystems where customers, partners, and even competitors constantly interact to co-create value.
From Pipelines to Platforms to Interaction Fields
• Traditional businesses operate as pipelines: value flows linearly from producer to consumer.
• Platforms (like Uber, Airbnb) create multi-sided networks where producers and consumers interact.
• Interaction fields are a step beyond: they enable many-to-many interactions across an open, dynamic ecosystem — not just transactions, but learning, co-creation, and innovation.
Joachimsthaler shared how this model works, why it matters, and where it applies — with solid real-world examples like Tesla, Alibaba, Peloton and GoPro. However, as a business student, this ideology is a huge overlap with other successful platform and ecosystem strategies that we have already studied, which makes it confusing why and how the Interaction Field stands apart.
Where the book fell short for me:
The writing feels repetitive and padded at times — the core idea is powerful but gets restated in too many ways, with too much jargon and not enough tactical ‘how-to’. I found myself wishing for fewer buzzwords and more clear, practical frameworks or checklists for leaders to put this into action.
Nevertheless, I pressed on to finish the book even though it felt confusing and a chore. Here are the key learning points I took away:
• From Pipelines to Platforms to Interaction Fields
As a business, don’t just facilitate transactions within your industry— design for continuous, multi-party interactions that generate new value loops.
• Interaction Fields Solve Complex Problems
Think bigger than your product — find the broader systemic problem and orchestrate for others to collaborate to help solve it.
• Value Creation Comes from Interaction, Not Just Ownership
Focus less on owning assets, data, or patents— focus more on enabling trust and repeated interactions. Think of Tesla’s open patents or Alibaba’s ecosystem — they win by increasing interaction density, not hoarding IP.
• Network Effects on Steroids
Interaction fields benefit from collaborative network effects — the more diverse the participants, the more valuable the field becomes. Unlike closed platforms, these effects are multi-directional: data, insights, and innovations move freely and amplify each other. Design for openness and shared value, not just gated access.
• Leadership Shift: Orchestrate, Don’t Control
Leaders must shift from controlling resources to orchestrating an environment where others thrive. This means embracing partners (and even competitors) and letting go of the illusion of total control. The orchestrator’s power comes from setting standards, ensuring fairness, and evolving the field over time. Your role is to convene, enable, and evolve — not dictate.
Verdict:
The idea is visionary, but not surgical. Great for conceptual alignment at the executive level, but not a tight, operational manual. I’d actually recommend watching a talk or podcast summary instead of reading the full book for these reasons:
• Repetitive: Many chapters circle back to the same point: more interaction = more value. After the first few examples, it starts to feel redundant.
• Buzzword-heavy: Sometimes it leans on jargon (“interaction velocity,” “collaborative network effects”) instead of plain, punchy explanations.
• Misses tactical depth: There’s a lot of “why” but less “how.” If you’re looking for concrete playbooks to build an interaction field, you might feel teased but underfed.
Worth skimming if you’re interested in platform thinking and ecosystem strategy — just be ready for some hand-waving and filler. The big idea might help you think more broadly about business ecosystems, but you’ll need to do the work yourself to make it actionable.
The Interaction Field introduces a compelling idea: businesses that thrive in the future won’t just run pipelines or platforms — they’ll build open ecosystems where customers, partners, and even competitors constantly interact to co-create value.
From Pipelines to Platforms to Interaction Fields
• Traditional businesses operate as pipelines: value flows linearly from producer to consumer.
• Platforms (like Uber, Airbnb) create multi-sided networks where producers and consumers interact.
• Interaction fields are a step beyond: they enable many-to-many interactions across an open, dynamic ecosystem — not just transactions, but learning, co-creation, and innovation.
Joachimsthaler shared how this model works, why it matters, and where it applies — with solid real-world examples like Tesla, Alibaba, Peloton and GoPro. However, as a business student, this ideology is a huge overlap with other successful platform and ecosystem strategies that we have already studied, which makes it confusing why and how the Interaction Field stands apart.
Where the book fell short for me:
The writing feels repetitive and padded at times — the core idea is powerful but gets restated in too many ways, with too much jargon and not enough tactical ‘how-to’. I found myself wishing for fewer buzzwords and more clear, practical frameworks or checklists for leaders to put this into action.
Nevertheless, I pressed on to finish the book even though it felt confusing and a chore. Here are the key learning points I took away:
• From Pipelines to Platforms to Interaction Fields
As a business, don’t just facilitate transactions within your industry— design for continuous, multi-party interactions that generate new value loops.
• Interaction Fields Solve Complex Problems
Think bigger than your product — find the broader systemic problem and orchestrate for others to collaborate to help solve it.
• Value Creation Comes from Interaction, Not Just Ownership
Focus less on owning assets, data, or patents— focus more on enabling trust and repeated interactions. Think of Tesla’s open patents or Alibaba’s ecosystem — they win by increasing interaction density, not hoarding IP.
• Network Effects on Steroids
Interaction fields benefit from collaborative network effects — the more diverse the participants, the more valuable the field becomes. Unlike closed platforms, these effects are multi-directional: data, insights, and innovations move freely and amplify each other. Design for openness and shared value, not just gated access.
• Leadership Shift: Orchestrate, Don’t Control
Leaders must shift from controlling resources to orchestrating an environment where others thrive. This means embracing partners (and even competitors) and letting go of the illusion of total control. The orchestrator’s power comes from setting standards, ensuring fairness, and evolving the field over time. Your role is to convene, enable, and evolve — not dictate.
Verdict:
The idea is visionary, but not surgical. Great for conceptual alignment at the executive level, but not a tight, operational manual. I’d actually recommend watching a talk or podcast summary instead of reading the full book for these reasons:
• Repetitive: Many chapters circle back to the same point: more interaction = more value. After the first few examples, it starts to feel redundant.
• Buzzword-heavy: Sometimes it leans on jargon (“interaction velocity,” “collaborative network effects”) instead of plain, punchy explanations.
• Misses tactical depth: There’s a lot of “why” but less “how.” If you’re looking for concrete playbooks to build an interaction field, you might feel teased but underfed.
Worth skimming if you’re interested in platform thinking and ecosystem strategy — just be ready for some hand-waving and filler. The big idea might help you think more broadly about business ecosystems, but you’ll need to do the work yourself to make it actionable.
May 14, 2020
This book discusses a different approach to the value chain for companies and instead endores the interaction approach. This book is interesting and I enjoyed reading about the theory and the examples of companies that use the approach today.
Thanks to Perseus Books, Public Affairs and NetGalley!
Thanks to Perseus Books, Public Affairs and NetGalley!
January 19, 2021
Really enjoyed this.
Written in a very accessible way, it successfully delivers a powerful message about the value in mutual value creation.
I recommend it to anyone interested in shared success powered by purpose.
Written in a very accessible way, it successfully delivers a powerful message about the value in mutual value creation.
I recommend it to anyone interested in shared success powered by purpose.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews