October 1, 2010
Malcolm Gladwell has certainly whipped up something of a firestorm, at least among social media and network enthusiasts. In a sense, his timing couldn’t be better as this very morning IISC staff gathers with some very bright and committed network building thinkers and consultants to take our ongoing conversation about networks for social change the next step, with some practical application in our collective sights. I expect, and hope, that some of the energetic on-line conversation Gladwell has inspired in our community will continue during this in-person gathering.
In case you missed it, the author of The Tipping Point published a piece in the recent New Yorker entitled, “Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted.” Read More
October 1, 2010
Malcolm Gladwell has certainly whipped up something of a firestorm, at least among social media and network enthusiasts. In a sense, his timing couldn’t be better as this very morning IISC staff gathers with some very bright and committed network building thinkers and consultants to take our ongoing conversation about networks for social change the next step, with some practical application in our collective sights. I expect, and hope, that some of the energetic on-line conversation Gladwell has inspired in our community will continue during this in-person gathering.
In case you missed it, the author of The Tipping Point published a piece in the recent New Yorker entitled, “Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted.” Read More
October 1, 2010
Malcolm Gladwell has certainly whipped up something of a firestorm, at least among social media and network enthusiasts. In a sense, his timing couldn’t be better as this very morning IISC staff gathers with some very bright and committed network building thinkers and consultants to take our ongoing conversation about networks for social change the next step, with some practical application in our collective sights. I expect, and hope, that some of the energetic on-line conversation Gladwell has inspired in our community will continue during this in-person gathering.
In case you missed it, the author of The Tipping Point published a piece in the recent New Yorker entitled, “Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted.” Read More
October 12, 2009
In last week’s New Yorker, John Cassidy wrote a must-read article entitled “Rational Irrationality – The real reason that capitalism is crash-prone”. It is about the complexity of the financial market and brings to mind another classic book written by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, “The Black Swan – The impact of the highly improbable“.
Both the article and the book deal with what Nassim Taleb describes as the characteristics of a black swan (i.e. a highly improbable event), which are: it is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact and after the fact we concoct an explanation that makes it more predictable than it was. The near financial collapse (saved from complete collapse by government intervention), the astonishing success of Google and 9/11 are all black swans. Both authors speak directly to our human limitations in explaining our inability to see what’s coming whether opportunity or disaster. A major reason according to Taleb is that humans are hard-wired to focus on specifics when we should be focused on generalities. We concentrate on what we know and simplify, narrate and categorize. And, we simply do not reward those who can imagine the impossible. Read More
