New Business Paradigms, Part Three—The Network:
In the business world, we are currently breaking away from the paradigms of
centralization and ‘hub & spoke’ (discussed in last weeks’ tips). We are in
the early stages of a new kind of decentralization paradigm, one that is
based on the characteristics of a network.
‘Web’ is really the wrong metaphor for this network—as a web implies a
weaving outward from the center, in the way that a spider’s web is woven. If
one main thread of a spider’s web is broken, the web loses its integrity and
becomes useless. But for our net, it might be better to think of one of those
colorful Guatemalan hammocks which can sustain many breaks in the small
threads before any real structural damage is apparent.
Our network is based on the original physical design of the ARPA net, in
which every computer was connected to at least three others to form a network
of redundancy and stability. If one computer went down, a message could still
easily be passed on via one of the other computers on the network.
The original ARPA net, and, now the internet, has created an entirely new way
of thinking about resources and communications. And because the business
world is the arena most adaptive to the new, it is in this world that we see
the first effects of this ‘network paradigm.’
More next week.
