Showing posts with label systems. Show all posts
Showing posts with label systems. Show all posts

The New World of Wireless: How to Compete in the 4G Revolution Review

The New World of Wireless: How to Compete in the 4G Revolution
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The New World of Wireless: How to Compete in the 4G Revolution ReviewExcellent read for corporate managers, investors and business strategists on how 4G will impact consumer and corporate behavior, change market dynamics. Not overly technical, good 1000-10,000 foot view.The New World of Wireless: How to Compete in the 4G Revolution Overview

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Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age Review

Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age
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Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age ReviewContrary to some recent remarks from an apparently aggrieved reader, I think Six Degrees is actually quite different from most books claiming to cover new and exciting scientific developments. Far from being self-aggrandizing, I found it's tone remarkably humble and generous to others. Watts, in fact, is the first person to call his subject the "new" science of networks, and goes to considerable lengths to acknowledge, even glorify, his intellectual predecessors. He doesn't mention every scientist who has made contributions: it's not meant to be a text book, thankfully.
Watts also has bigger fish to fry than simply the importance of networks in everything under the sun. His real message is that social reality has to be understood both in terms of the way people are connected and also the way they behave. So focusing on individual behavior to the exclusion of their interactions misses half the story, but so does just focusing on the interactions (as much of network theory has done). It's true that many of the ideas are quite old (and Watts again is the first to point this out), but the way they are put together is new, and that is what is so interesting about it.
The results are often quite deep and thought provoking, which means you have to actually read the book to understand what's in it, but Watts always comes up with an entertaining anecdote or analogy to make even the hardest concepts palatable and interesting. Overall, it's a great, fun read about a fascinating subject that really makes you think. And what more can you ask from a book?Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age Overview

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The Emerging Consensus in Social Systems Theory Review

The Emerging Consensus in Social Systems Theory
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The Emerging Consensus in Social Systems Theory ReviewPeople new to systems thinking and cybernetics are looking for handy resources to get started. This book requires something more. However, once a person gains a basic understanding, this book has proven to me to be one of the best. It points the reader in a number of directions for further study, and gives a useful summary of what the reader will find there.
Its treatment of the famous Luhmann-Habermas debates was especially helpful, and I plan to use a number of other sections in my own studies and college teaching for some time to come. I find that the writer understood the importance of orienting the reader who hadn't been comfortable with the science and mathematics that often go with systems thinking.
The author does an especially good job trying to integrate certain concerns with democracy, participative management, and widespread involvement that a systems approach sometimes neglects in pursuit of social engineering by a technical elite.
This book was heavier than a simple introduction, so it is not exactly the front door to systems thinking, but I have found it to be a hallway to many rooms that I am still exploring -- thanks to Kenneth Bausch.The Emerging Consensus in Social Systems Theory Overview

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The Global Brain: Your Roadmap for Innovating Faster and Smarter in a Networked World Review

The Global Brain: Your Roadmap for Innovating Faster and Smarter in a Networked World
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The Global Brain: Your Roadmap for Innovating Faster and Smarter in a Networked World Review
With regard to the term Global Brain, Satish Nambisan and Mohanbir Sawhney refer to "the diverse set of external players that constitute the innovation network for the companies" discussed in this book such as P&G, IBM, Boeing, and Apple]; and Network-centric innovation to describe "the underlying principles of collaborative innovation in such a context." They add that a common theme n their research was their interest in the concept of distributed innovation. That is, "innovation initiatives that are spread across a diverse network of partners." Their vehicle for exploration was the Kellogg Innovation Network (KIN) -- "a forum for senior innovation managers of large companies - affiliated with the Center for Research in Information and Technology that [Sawhney] directs at the Kellogg School of Management. The KIN is an excellent example of the power of the Global Brain in action."
Nambisan and Sawhney carefully organize and present their material within five Parts. During the course of their narrative, they respond to questions such as these:
Why should companies seek innovation externally during a transition from being firm-centric and network-centric?
What are the core principles of network-centric innovation?
What are the four basic models and key elements of network-centric innovation?
How to develop a contingent framework that maps the context for innovation?
Which guidelines can help managers to evaluate the different types of opportunities that are most appropriate to their organization's resources, capabilities, and strategies?
What are the implications of network-centric innovation for the emerging economies?
What are the common trends in various countries' emerging economies?
How to analyze the potential for companies in these countries to "plug into the global brain"?
I especially appreciate Nambisan and Sawhney's provision of dozens of real-world examples that illustrate their key points. For example, in Chapter 5 they examine what they characterize as "the orchestra model" that can take two quite different forms: The Orchestra-Integrator model and the Orchestra-Platform model. With regard to the former, they examine Boeing's 787 Dreamliner project and include Table 5.1 (Pages 96-97) that portrays the project's specific elements of network-centric innovation. With regard to the Orchestra-Platform Model, they examine Salesforce.com and the AppExchange Forum. Figure 5.3 (Pages 110-111) illustrates the elements of its network-centric innovation.
"In both the Integrator and Platform model, the innovation architecture defined by the dominant firm becomes the context for the network partners to innovate...In both cases, the tricky part is to bring together a diverse set of capable partners who are sufficiently committed to the innovation architecture and to orchestrate their activities in a manner that leads to outcomes that are beneficial to all the network members."
After completing their exploration of the Global Brain and "painting a picture of the landscape of network-centric innovation," Nambisan and Sawhney urge their reader to chart her or his own organization's "journey" to position it as a player in the same rich and diverse landscape. "We have a simple mantra for [achieving] this: Think BIG, Start SMALL, Scale FAST."
Bon voyage!The Global Brain: Your Roadmap for Innovating Faster and Smarter in a Networked World Overview

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Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks Review

Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks
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Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks ReviewThe surprising answer is yes. I picked this book up after reading Steven Strogatz's Sync which mentions a great deal about the science of networks. Buchanan explains how networks exist everywhere - the net, the web, the power grid, our circle of friends, our sex partners - and that they are in fact very similar to one another.
The phrase "six degrees of separation" comes from the fact that two randomly chosen people, A and B, will on average be connected by six social links. A knows C who knows D who knows E who knows F who knows G who finally knows B. Considering the world has over 6 billion people, an average separation of 6 seems unbelievable small, but the explanation of this incredible phenomenon lies in the makeup of our social network. Our close friends know each other but our cluster of friends has weak ties to other clusters through acquaintances, people we really don't know that well - that's why when one is looking for a job, it's better to tell an acquaintance rather than a friend so that our inquiry can jump to other clusters. Our social network is essentially highly clustered but enough links exist between these clusters to allow us to jump from ourselves to any other person through just an average of six links. Buchanan shows us how this kind of network exists everywhere as mentioned above although he distinguishes between egalitarian networks where clusters are roughly the same size and aristocratic networks such as the WWW where gigantic hubs like Amazon.com exist that link to millions of websites.
One of the most interesting chapters in the book deals with sexual networks. It turns out that in the network of sex partners, certain people have a great many more links than the average person in the network. Buchanan explains how the structure of the sexual network actually accounts for the rapid spread of HIV. The virus spread quickly because the hubs in the network spread it to their numerous partners. In fact, it turns out that a significant percentage of the inital HIV cases had a sexual relationship with one particular flight attendant.
As I wrote in my review for Strogatz's Sync, we are entering an era of science where disparate fields of study are being linked because many phenomena that we used to regard as unrelated now appear to have very similar underlying bases. It is exciting to read books like Nexus because it illustrates this point. You should definitely read this book if your are interested in the science of networks and want to know how so many different phenomena are being explained by the same underlying principles.Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks Overview

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