I think you make an important point. A lot of activity by academics but also by others, is aimed at the discovery of “original knowledge”. This is a worth endeavour, indeed, it is essential is we are to move forward. However, there is still much to do the “transfer of knowledge” and spreading what is discovered around.

Anyone – well, maybe only non-academics – who reads an academic journal will recognise the problem. Plenty of original knowledge but who will access it and use it?

The other point you mention is the idea of a story and how it changes. This is true of patterns too. According to Alexander patterns must live, and to live implies to change. So, patterns cannot be static things. As they are passed on they need to change.

To take a hard core software development example consider the Singleton pattern from Gamma et al. Many developers now consider this to be an bad pattern – or an anti-pattern as some prefer to call it. The interpretation of this has changed radically over the years.

I’m not sure what direction I’ll take my business patterns in next. I feel I’ve satisfied my initial goal: to show that patterns can be used for business and business strategy specifically.