Networks & Scaling

Just sat through a talk by Dr. Geoffrey Rush.

Mind is over "leveraged", so I have to figure out how to verbalize this in a meaningful manner...

More to come.

Neuronal Networks and Pacemakers

Just finished a short talk by a post-doctoral candidate. He spoke on neuronal networks. I missed the first ten minutes or so, but I THINK he was trying to make the point that there is a tendency in neuronal networks to self-correct. He was making a point regarding pacemakers--I think the implication was that there is, according to his MODEL (that's key), we may be able to use this natural tendency in neuronal networks to "clock" themselves internally (to keep time for lack of a better term) to develop an internal type pacemaker...

I'll need to digest it a bit.

There are, obviously, tangential correlations to the business realm (that is, people are nodes on the network; is there a naturally occurring tendency in that network to 'self-regulate' for time, given enough nodes, when something kicks it off kilter?).

OK. So, that's the first topic...I'm going to lunch now, but I'll discuss over lunch and come back post-lunch with what may be an expanded perspective.

Thoughts are welcome as to how this relates to business and networks of people...

Dynamic Hierarchies Theme Week

As you may know, I work for a unique organization, in a very unique capacity. Our company, The Morning Star Company, is organized in a completely non-hierarchical manner. We have no formal fixed authority structure, rather we organize utilizing the principles and systems of Self-Management. This yields an organization that really looks more like a neural network than a command and control hierarchy. And authority is far more contextual, lending itself to a hierarchical structure that is far more dynamic and contextual.

I received an email this weekend with an invite to the Santa Fe Institute to participate in a Business Network Theme Week on the topic of Dynamic Hierarchies. For those of you who aren't familiar with the Santa Fe Institute (SFI), it's one of the nation's foremost interdisciplinary research institutions; their faculty are widely regarded as among the best in their respective fields. Obviously, considering our organization and my role, I couldn't pass up the opportunity. It's a small group setting: 6-10 of us around a conference table with researchers, discussing their findings and exploring ideas and ways to apply them to our organizations.

And I thought, what better way to capture important topics/content than to "live-blog" my way through the conference. So, I'll post here multiple times throughout each day; keep an eye out, and feel free to post comments or questions.

We'll see where it goes.