taleb Archives - Don Kasprzak

I found Albert-Laszlo Barabasi‘s Book Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means a wonderful read (review here) in March of 2008. It was a wonderful read about the science of networks….both computing and non-computing networks.

Laszlo Barabasi will be releasing a new book Bursts: The Hidden Pattern Behind Everything We Do at the end of April and if its anything like Linked it will become another best seller.

At the same time Laszlo Barabasi has released a social networking exercise (cool) called BuRSTS “that is a performance in human dynamics, a game of cooperation and prediction, that will gradually unveil the full text of Bursts.” Talk about hitting a social networking home run! Now if everyone will start grabbing text…

Linked demonstrated that patterns in space (How Everything is Connected to Everything Else and What It means for Business, Science, and Everyday Life) while Bursts will focus on patterns in time.

A couple of quotes about this upcoming release:

“In Linked, Barabasi showed us how complex networks unfold in space. In Bursts, he shows us how they unfold in time. Your life may look random to you, but everything from your visits to a web page to your visits to the doctor are predictable, and happen in bursts.”
-Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody

“Barabasi is one of the few people in the world who understand the deep structure of empirical reality.”
-Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan

I think Bursts is going to take us on a new ride. I’m looking forward to the journey.

There are interesting lessons in The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. Learn to look for trends, events and all the gems in life that seem hidden, out of place, under the table and around corners?
At 400 pages its no quick read but Taleb has presented his research by sharing stories and analysis about randomness in his own life. Taleb has suggested that technology and history is primarily driven by Black Swans.

There are many lessons for IT leaders when it comes to Black Swans. The BBC wrote an interesting article about how black swans in the area of information technology enterprise systems. One in six big IT projects go over-budget by an average of 200% Why? Once you see his point of view it will be much easier to notice black swans within your organization. His book’s takeaway? Unexpected and rare events and even novel ideas have a huge impact on the world.