Tiny Paper: The Developmental Platform

In this part of the Tiny Paper series, we introduce the concept of the Developmental Platform, first proposed in Oliver Ding’s 2021 book draft, Platform for Development: The Ecology of Adult Development in the 21st Century.

In the original article, Ding employed a four-set Venn diagram to differentiate the Developmental Platform from related notions such as the Deliberately Developmental Organization (DDO), Platform as Business Model, and Heteromation of Digital Platforms. This comparison highlighted the necessity of an ecological framework for interdisciplinary developmental studies and pointed toward the establishment of a broader platform ecology.

The Developmental Platform is defined as a social environment that actively supports adult development. It also serves as an intermediate concept, linking theoretical inquiry with practical application.

At Possible Press, we will collaborate with several knowledge centers to publish a series of Tiny Papers.