Perspectives on Innovation

Condensed from Complexity Digest 2010.17 by Bruce Hannon

Clouds, big data, and smart assets: Ten tech-enabled business trends to watch, McKinsey Quarterly

Excerpt:

Trend 1: Distributed cocreation moves into the mainstream
Trend 2: Making the network the organization
Trend 3: Collaboration at scale
Trend 4: The growing ‘Internet of Things’
Trend 5: Experimentation and big data
Trend 6: Wiring for a sustainable world
Trend 7: Imagining anything as a service
Trend 8: The age of the multisided business model
Trend 9: Innovating from the bottom of the pyramid
Trend 10: Producing public good on the grid

Source : Clouds, big data, and smart assets: Ten tech-enabled business trends to watch, Jacques Bughin, Michael Chui, and James Manyika, McKinsey Quaterly, 2010/08

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Excerpted from Complexity Digest 2010.15 by Bruce Hannon

Does diversity always grow?, Nature

Excerpt: McShea and Brandon do not claim that their law represents a wholly new evolutionary principle, rather that it is a unifying one. The tendency for increasing diversity has been recognized previously in specific situations. For example, molecular geneticists know that, in the absence of selection, populations will diverge genetically as neutral mutations accumulate. And evolutionary biologists have noticed that tissues and organs that are not subject to selection, such as the eyes of cave-dwelling fish, often show more variation between individuals. The authors aim to encompass these various findings in a single theory that covers all of the fields in which the principle has been seen (…)

• Source: Does diversity always grow?, Samir Okasha, DOI: 10.1038/466318a, Nature 466, 318, 2010/07/15

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Excerpted from Complexity Digest  2010.14 by Bruce Hannon

Language networks: Their structure, function, and evolution, Complexity

Abstract: Human language is the key evolutionary innovation that makes humans different from other species. And yet, the fabric of language is tangled and all levels of description (from semantics to syntax) involve multiple layers of complexity. Recent work indicates that the global traits displayed by such levels can be analyzed in terms of networks of connected words. Here, we review the state of the art on language webs and their potential relevance to cognitive science. The emergence of syntax through language acquisition is used as a case study to illustrate how the approach can shed light into relevant questions concerning language organization and its evolution.

• Source: Language networks: Their structure, function, and evolution, Ricard V. Solé, Bernat Corominas-Murtra, Sergi Valverde, Luc Steels, DOI: 10.1002/cplx.20305, Complexity Volume 15 Issue 6, Pages 20 – 26, 2010/07

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…excerpted from Complexity Digest 2010.13

Putting organizational complexity in its place, McKinsey Quaterly

Summary: Not all complexity is bad for business “but executives don’t always know what kind their company has. They should understand what creates complexity for most employees, remove what doesn’t add value, and channel the rest to employees who can handle it effectively.

• Source: Putting organizational complexity in its place, Julian Birkinshaw and Suzanne Heywood, McKinsey Quaterly, 2010/05

First replicating creature spawned in life simulator, New Scientist

Excerpts: F YOU found a self-replicating organism living inside your computer, your first instinct might be to reach for the antivirus software. If, however, you are Andrew Wade, an avid player in the two-dimensional, mathematical universe known as the Game of Life, such a discovery is nothing short of an epiphany. (…)

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Excerpted from Complexity Digest 2010-12 by Bruce Hannon

Life after the synthetic cell, Nature

Summary: Nature asked eight synthetic-biology experts about the implications for science and society of the “synthetic cell” made by the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI). The institute’s team assembled, modified and implanted a synthesized genome into a DNA-free bacterial shell to make a self-replicating Mycoplasma mycoides.

• Source: Life after the synthetic cell, DOI: 10.1038/465422a, Nature 465, 422″424, 2010/05/26

Inductive Game Theory and the Dynamics of Animal Conflict, PLoS Comput Biol

Excerpt: Persistent conflict is one of the most important contemporary challenges to the integrity of society and to individual quality of life. Yet surprisingly little is understood about conflict. (…) (more…)