Controlling complex systems - insights from Albert-Laszlo Barabasi
In another fascinating session at the World Economic forum, Barabasi who is a distinguished Professor of Physics at Northeastern, presented some of his work on how one can 'control' a complex system. We all know that our traditional command and control approaches fail utterly when a system's complexity increases. Instead, if we want to drive a system from an intial state to some other final state, we do better by influencing critical nodes. He used the analogy of driving a car - once you have the brake, steering wheel and acceleration system sorted out you can drive it without having to know all the complexity that lies underneath.
You can find links to his work at this link.
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- Posted Rita McGrath on January 25, 2012
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