Information architecture provides the basis for which future organizational innovation, change, and adaptation can occur, so long as there is a structural cohesiveness to the approach for storing and arranging information. By providing a platform-level convention for performing the tasks associated with the addition of sites, workspaces, namespaces, and even the information itself, you are creating immediate added value while laying the groundwork for emergent capability. So what is the difference between added value creation and the creation of emergent capability?

An emergent capability is a new capability that is created as the result of a functioning system that was not present by simply adding together the value created by each individual component of that system. By combining the added value of multiple functionalities, new capabilities manifest, often unexpectedly. For example, by simply possessing or creating all of the individual components that make up an automobile, one goes nowhere. Only after all of those components are assembled in a highly specific manner does the additional capability of transportation emerge. Adding air conditioning or a radio to the automobile might add additional value, but these components are not required for transportation. Remove the rear tires, though, and you have problems. The extensible value delivery mechanism described in this section illustrates the power of information architecture. Information architecture provides highly specific, predefined arrangements for how each of the primary elements (components) in a system fit together to create intended added value. The resulting flexibility and availability of solution options, when properly reinforced, lends to the long-term creation of additional secondary and tertiary system capabilities that were neither planned nor expected but are nevertheless of significant value.