But in reality, there are no value chains. Every single company in the world is a part of the same, huge, value web. And it’s not only money that makes such connections, so does the flow of information and ideas, staff recruitments and mutual board members or financers.

Network theories of this sort have been a hot topic for the past 2 years or so in the popular media. Among the literature are two of my favorite Wetware related books, Emergence by Steven Johnson and Linked by Albert-László Barabási. At least Barabási pays some attention to the corporate ecosystem in his book, I don’t remember if Johnson does.

Despite my effort to find some serious research or gathering of info on this corporate web structure, it seems that nobody has taken on the task to map this interesting network. Various other networks such as webpages, (including blogsites), people’s social networks, email correspondance, cell interaction and Kevin Bacon’s acting relations have have been explored quite extensively. This lack of info on the corporate web structure amazes me for several reasons:

1. It’s relatively easy. Much of the information to build a map of these networks is easily and freely available on the web. For public US companies, SEC filings are a prime source. Almost all corporate web sites list things like management, board members, partners and sometimes customers. Press releases often hold clues. Making the first and already highly valuable network of this sort is far easier than e.g. mapping social networks in Canberra. Manually adding more information and keeping such a network up to date would mean you would have a hot product.

2. It has serious value. Being able to identify the primary connections for competitors or see the degree, strength and value of a company’s connections during any due-diligence process are examples of tools that could heavily impact corporate strategy or help identify the best venture capital opportunity since this guy was doing his presentations in Silicon Valley in the mid 90s.

3. The biz people would understand it. I’ve long held the view that the tech-sector is skewed towards applications for business people. This is e.g. the reason for “Where is the nearest restaurant?” and other business travelers’ guidance are favorite examples of location based services, forgetting that 99% of people spend 99% of their time close to home.

The type of links I would propose keeping track of include:

• Cash flow: Direct business two companies are doing with each other. Quantifiable by $
• Partnerships: Collaboration that does not involve direct business. Not easily quantifiable.
• Mutual ownership: Are there any direct or indirect mutual owners. Quantifiable by percentages.
• Mutual people: Board members, advisors etc. that companies share. Not easily quantifiable.
• Staff exchange: Employees that formerly worked for the other company. Quantifiable by headcount, but other factors are involved such as positions etc. that are not as easily quantifiable.

There are more, but these are enough to give an idea of what I mean. Putting subjective numbers to the unquantifiable values (partners that are known to be working closely together could have partner value 10 while signing up to a standard partnership program could have a value of 1 for example) could further improve the value of such network.

With this info at hand one could start looking for patterns that identify successful companies, tweak the factors that indicate the relative values of each type of links or just spot quickly who is likely to be hurt in the latest corporate scandal: “SELL! – before others spot it.”

P.S. As the second example of “lazy programming” in just over a week, keep an eye out for my new book: “Lazy programming, made easy”

Nature Science Update reports yesterday on the use of mice to simulate people trying to escape in a panic situation. The research, conducted by Caesar Saloma and colleagues at the University of the Philippines is studying escaping mice to help improve computer models of escape in panic situations.

This is a very real and worthwhile problem to work on, as a stampeding crowd is often the cause for the majority of deaths and injuries in emergency situations. And if you are thinking that mice will not be good models because they are less intelligent than we are, think again:

Faced with a narrow door, mice form a kind of queue and make a relatively orderly escape, they find. Wider doors cause the animals to block one another, making their getaway sporadic and inefficient. Escape is also erratic when there are several doors, as crowds around one can obstruct the next.

…

Like us, mice fleeing from life-threatening danger look for the exit and make for it, pushing others aside if necessary. What’s more, like panicking humans, the animals tend to follow one another rather than assessing the best exit route.

Panic probably evokes our primitive instincts, seemingly a good idea, rather than having us ponder about the best solution while the danger further heightens.

Link:
Pedestrian movement research at UCL

• In 1999, two years after being beat by Deep Blue, Gary Kasparov took on the World in a match where a team of young chess experts suggested strategies that surfers would then vote on. Kasparov won, but met significant resistance. In earlier attempts where simply the move with the highest number of votes would be played, the collective consensus proved to be very poor.
• Osinga mentions The Smaller Picture, where web surfers collectively are making a font. It is very similar to Osinga’s project but more straight forward, as the world map project includes questions like different world views (where do you place the center? Do Americans draw America proportionally larger than it really is? etc.)
• And a discussion of such projects cannot be completed without mentioning the work of Loren Carpenter, beautifully portrayed in chapter 2 of Kevin Kelly’s (Wired editor) book Out of control. (The chapter is a must read!)

Projects like these can probably tell us quite a lot about democracy and whether or not the majority vote necessarily yields the best outcome but I’ll leave you to judge as you browse through these projects. Enjoy!

Links:
Linked: The New Science of Networks Book by Physicist Albert-László Barabási on networks and emergent behavior
Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software Brilliant book on emergence and complexity