Posts Tagged ‘social computing’
Love Facebook? How about getting a job with Facebook?
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So all your friends are on Facebook. Do you think they’d be impressed if your business card says Facebook? Read the rest of this entry »
Navigating the Internet Jungle
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What does biology tell us about how we navigate the Internet jungle? Wild animals foraging for food often follow subtle cues such as scent to identify profitable food patches. Read the rest of this entry »
The Starfish and the Spider – by Ori Brafman & Rod A. Beckstrom
What do ebay and terrorists have in common?
From Publishers Weekly
Brafman and Beckstrom, a pair of Stanford M.B.A.s who have applied their business know-how to promoting peace and economic development through decentralized networking, offer a breezy and entertaining look at how decentralization is changing many organizations. The title metaphor conveys the core concept: though a starfish and a spider have similar shapes, their internal structure is dramatically different—a decapitated spider inevitably dies, while a starfish can regenerate itself from a single amputated leg. In the same way, decentralized organizations, like the Internet, the Apache Indian tribe and Alcoholics Anonymous, are made up of many smaller units capable of operating, growing and multiplying independently of each other, making it very difficult for a rival force to control or defeat them. Despite familiar examples—eBay, Napster and the Toyota assembly line, for example—there are fresh insights, such as the authors’ three techniques for combating a decentralized competitor (drive change in your competitors’ ideology, force them to become centralized or decentralize yourself). The authors also analyze one of today’s most worrisome “starfish” organizations—al-Qaeda—though that group undermines the authors’ point that the power of leaderless groups helps to demonstrate the essential goodness and trustworthiness of human beings. (Oct. 5)
