Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Doing Business With The Swarm

While it is certainly true the old networks tend toward dead speech patterns, and that swarm behavior typifies the open network model of communications and transactions, have you ever actually tried to buy honey from the swarm?

You can't. You have to follow them back to the hive, smoke 'em out, and steal it.

The superior bee keeper does not negotiate with the bees; he harvests their production and sells it. As much as one resists the deadening of language and behavior based on businessSpeak, it is useful to know when to use a protocol and when to dump it just as a jazz musician knows when to comp, when to improvise and when to play the head note for note. Emergence is not chaos: it is order modulating out of chaos and back to the edge for more honey.

The competitors believe business is a chess game and they have to beat the other players. The innovators believe business is a means to get the bees to dance together, so they cooperate with them. Command and control is replaced by converse and learn. "Readiness is all."

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