Ubiquity

This is not a hard book to read, but it is difficult to integrate into the way you look at the world. Mark Buchanan is a science writer who has worked on the editorial staff of Nature and as a features editor New Scientist. In this book he is writing about the development of a growing field of physics - complexity. Complexity is chaos in critical states. A critical state exists in a system that is not in equilibrium. You may have heard of the "butterfly effect". That is, there is a possibility that a butterfly flapping its wings in South America can cause a storm in Europe weeks later. However, that same butterfly can flap all in wants inside a closed balloon with no effects, other than maybe slightly increasing the temperature of the air in the balloon. The air inside the balloon is in equilibrium, even though the molecules exhibit chaotic behavior. The atmosphere is in a critical, i.e. non-equilibrium, state. A small perturbation somewhere can lead to very big changes.

If the air inside the balloon is in equilibrium, its past, present and future are all the same. It has no "history". When things are in non-equilibrium, history matters since what happens now can never be washed away but affects the entire course of the future.

The applications of this model extend from the piling of grains of sand in an hourglass to economics.

"Despite what scientists had previously believed, might the critical state in fact be quite common? Could riddling lines of instability of a logically equivalent sort run through the Earth's crust, for example, through forests and ecosystems, and perhaps even through the somewhat more abstract "fabric" of our economics? Think of those first few crumbling rocks near Kobe, or that first insignificant dip in prices that triggered the stock market crash of 1987. Might these have been "sand grains" acting at another level? Could the special organization of the critical state explain why the world at large seems so susceptible to unpredictable upheavals?

A decade of research by hundreds of other physicists has explored this question and taken the initial idea much further. There are many subtleties and twists in the story to which we shall come later in this book, but the basic message, roughly speaking, is simple: The peculiar and exceptionally unstable organization of the critical state does indeed seem to be ubiquitous in our world. Researchers in the past few years have found its mathematical fingerprints in the workings of all the upheavals I've mentioned so far, as well as in the spreading of epidemics, the flaring of traffic jams, the patterns by which instructions trickle down from managers to workers in an office, and in many other things. At the heart of our story, then, lies the discovery that networks of things of all atoms, molecules, species, people, and even ideas have a marked tendency to organize themselves along similar lines. On the basis of this insight, scientists are finally beginning to fathom what lies behind tumultuous events of all sorts, and to see patterns at work here where they have never seen them before."

The mathematical models of this science don't really exist yet, and may never exist. We have empirical observations and we have games. The empirical data suggests that all these phenomena follow a power curve, and all with roughly the same shape. For example, looking at earthquakes, as the strength of the earthquake doubles, the frequency of occurrence drops by one fourth. This simple rule seems to apply to many examples.

So what does this have to do with creativity, strategy, leadership and innovation in organization? Well, I'm not sure yet. My intuition tells me that this is very important to those concepts. It may help us understand the frequency of occurrence of breakthrough ideas and innovation. It may help explain why some innovations cause such change and others do not. It may help produce better strategies to deal with chaotic and unstable markets. And, it may provide lessons for leaders in chaotic times. I'd welcome a discussion.

Ubiquity: Why Catastrophes Happen
Mark Buchanan
Thee Rivers Press, 2000
273 pages

The Tipping Point

This book is an interesting and easy read. Gladwell introduces the idea of a tipping point - a moment when an idea, trend or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. He integrates observations from a variety of applications from Paul Revere's ride to the lowering of crime in New York to the spread of Hushpuppies to epidemics, among others.

He concludes that there are three rules of the tipping point - the law of the few, the stickiness factor and the power of context. In defining the law of the few, he reiterates some of the well-known observations about networking, but adds some additional structure. He identifies three types of people that have to be operating in the network - connectors, mavens and salesmen. Connectors are people who have many connections. But, he goes on to describe the importance of weak links (links with people we don't know well). It's apparently not telling friends about something that helps, its telling acquaintances.

Using job hunting as an example, he reports that successful job applicants found their jobs in a variety of ways in a 1974 study - 20% applied directly, 19% used formal means and 56% used personal connections. Of those who used a contact to find a job, 17% saw that contact often, 56% occasionally and 28% rarely. "People weren't getting their jobs through their friends. They were getting them through their acquaintances." Why, because we share much in common with our friends so nothing new is added. Our acquaintances have their own networks that bring entirely new people into the web.

Mavens are experts who act as sources on information and can qualify the idea or product. And, salesmen are well, sales people.

The stickiness factor becomes harder to quantify. There is not a science of what makes something stick, that is stay in a person's mind. It's an art. If you create something, peoples' response to it can be tested. Stickiness is not in the content but in its package. "There is a simple way to package information that, under the right circumstances, can make it irresistible. All you have to do is find it."

The power of context refers to the conditions and circumstances of times and places for a tipping point. "But the lesson of the Power of Context is that we are more than just sensitive to changes in context. We're exquisitely sensitive to them." In reviewing studies on crime and behavior he states, "Weird as it sounds, if you add up the meaning of the Stanford prison experiment and the New York subway experiment, they suggest that it is possible to be a better person on a clean street or in a clean subway than in one with trash and graffiti." The other major part of the context he discusses is the influence of groups. "Once we're part of a group, we're all susceptible to peer pressure and social norms and any number of other kinds of influence that can play a critical role in sweeping us up in the beginnings of an epidemic." If you want to introduce new concepts and beliefs and bring about change that will persist, "you need to create a community around them, where those new beliefs could be practiced and expressed and nurtured."

This is a good book for anyone interested in innovation to read. It's the type of book I like, one that synthesizes knowledge from many fields. And, I believe it offers some insights of value to innovation practitioners. Read together with Ubiquity, it can provide insight and meat for a lot of discussion.

Malcolm Gladwell is a former business and science writer at the Washington Post. He is currently a staff writer for The New Yorker.

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
Malcolm Gladwell
Little, Brown & Company, 2000
301 pages

Benjamin Franklin

This book is a great work of history and a literary success. But, it is also the story of one of America’s great innovators. During his 84-year life he was America’s best scientist, inventor, diplomat, writer and business strategist. He was practical in all his innovations. (See accompanying article on his innovations.) He was the only person to participate in all the founding documents of this nation – the Albany Plan of Union, the Declaration of Independence, the treaty of alliance with France, the peace treaty with England and the Constitution. Moreover, he continually reinvented himself.

This is a great read at any level. Franklin comes to life off the pages. But, for anyone interested being an innovator, it is essential reading.

Walter Isaacson, the President of the Aspen Institute, has been the chairman of CNN and the managing editor of Time magazine. He is the author of Kissinger: A Biography and the co-author of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made. He lives in Washington, DC, with his wife and daughter.

Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
Walter Isaacson, Simon & Schuster, 2003, Hard Cover, 590 pages


© 2004 The Innovation Road Map

Good to Great

Before you read this, know that I’m biased. I’ve lived too long, read too many books and article and experienced too much in business. Any time I read that someone has the answer for all companies, I cringe. If there is anything I’ve learned in business is that every business is different. In business solutions, one size does not fit all. Whenever someone says that they have a simple answer for business, I recoil. Another thing I’ve learned is that business is a complex problem. And, complex problems deserve being respected for their complexity. Solutions to complex problems may be elegant, but they are rarely simple.

In addition to the above, my problem with this book is its premise and research methodology. The basis of all the work that went into this book is the “Ratio of Cumulative Stock Returns to General Market”. While this is certainly an important variable, it is not the complete measure of a company’s greatness. It may or may not even be an indicator.

First, stockholders are only one of the many stakeholders that a company has. As an extreme example, consider a fast growing, highly profitable company that’s raping the environment. A great company must have a positive economic impact on its customers and honor the trust that a customer places in the company by purchasing goods and services. A great company must respect the individuals its employees, its suppliers and its strategic partners. A great company must also balance its financial performance in stock market with the development of its people, technology, industry and country. And, among many other things, a great company must be ethical and honor the trust given to them by the people in allowing them to incorporate.

Lastly, I have a problem with any book about great companies that does not deal with innovation and creativity. Many of the examples described are innovations; it just doesn’t call them that. The book seems to studiously avoid the use of creativity, strategy and innovation as those words were forbidden.

The chapters in the book include:

• Good is the Enemy of Great


• Level 5 Leadership


• First Who…Then What


• Confront the Brutal Facts (Yet Never Lose Faith)


• The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity within Three Circles)


• A Culture of Discipline


• Technology Accelerators


• The Flywheel and the Doom Loop


• From Good to Great to Built to Last

The book is written well and easy to understand. It was designed that way. Millions of copies have been sold, so maybe I’m wrong. I have been a time or two in my life. But, I did have problems with The Search for Excellence. Remember that book…?

Jim Collins is co-author of Built to Last, a national bestseller for over five years with a million copies in print. A student of enduring great companies, he serves as a teacher to leaders throughout the corporate and social sectors. Formally a faculty member at Stanford University Graduate School of Business, where he received the Distinguished Teaching Award, Jim now works from his management research laboratory in Boulder, Colorado.

Good to Great
Jim Collins, Harper Business, 2001, Hard Cover, 300 pages

© 2004 The Innovation Road Map