Recommended Reading: The Starfish and the Spider
The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations
By Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom
Spiders have:
Centralized organization.
A head, body, legs and eyes.
A leader and a hierarchy.
A central headquarters.
Starfish have:
Decentralized organization.
Interchangeable parts.
No leader or hierarchy.
No headquarters.
They may look much the same, but they are very, very different
The Starfish and the Spider is a wonderfully clearly written and fascinating plunge into the emergence of decentralized organizations and how they are coming to in many ways replace their centralized counterparts.
For consideration of 5GW theory the utility is obvious all throughout the text.
Pick it up at your local or online bookstore or at your community library. It’s a quick read but a rewarding one.
Filed in The Vault and tagged Books, Ori Brafman, Rod A. Beckstrom, The Starfish and the Spider
I bought it through Amazon a few weeks ago. It queued up on my book stack.
Haven't read it or bought it yet.
To my mind, the 5GW organization is more like the geneticist who designs the spider or the starfish, on a case-by-case, as-needed basis!
;)
I too came away with that thought after reading the book. Sequential 5GW following the Spider organization and the Iterative approach being optimized for a Starfish organization.
There is, of course, a Hybrid organization that is discussed in the text.
I finished reading the book. I really like. I will write a longer post on it.
The starfish orgs are created by the 5GW actors which are identified as XXXXX (the creator or idea generator, I left my copy at work - I don't remember the actual name) , and the Champion (the actor that goes around and seeds or creates the starfish organizations; an evangelists and project manager, a memetic Johnny Appleseed). Think Jesus and Paul.
This might make an intriguing title for the subject of a 5GW post!
From the Initiating 5GW post onward, I've considered the possibility that an 'open' 5GW actor -- who only appears to be a celebrity, politician, etc., to those who see him -- might be able to spread the right memes in a 5GW campaign. Significantly, such an actor would not be known as a 5GW operative, since announcing an attempt at manipulation for 5GW purposes would probably produce too much competition, static; but getting the memes out there in the standard ways might actually fulfill an expectation for those quite familiar with the roles of celebrities, authors, etc., while...well, getting the memes into public debate.
Purpleslog,
The word you are looking for is 'catalyst'.
Curtis,
I'm not sure that the originator of an idea (or catalyst) has to neccessarily have anything to do with the 5GW campaign. For example, in my laying the Foundations post on iterative design I talk about Tom Barnett's books being examples of 5GW planning. Barnett himself need not be in any way involved in any 5GW organization whose goal is to 'Shrink the Gap', but he can, and has, put the meme out the into the public eye.
Arherring,
I certainly don't think an originator needs to be part of the 5GW campaign -- but he could be, and why not?
Well, as far as the Starfish and the Spider is concerned quite a bit of time is spent exploring different situations where catalysts are still involved with their creations and at least as far as decentralized organizations go, the authors contend there comes a point where the catalyst needs to get out of the way of their idea. (This goes back to an earlier discussion of ours). That point is where the idea gains a momentum of its own and if the catalyst doesn't relinquish control a danger arises where the message is lost because the idea comes to be about the catalyst than the other way around.
So, yes, he could be but there is a very good reason why not. On the other hand, the Champion -is- the face of the idea as its salesman and relentless promoter. This is why people like Susan B. Anthony are well known and why we have largely forgotten people like Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
-- This makes perfect sense to me. Often when we see the salesman, we can't help judging his ideas on the basis of things which may not be closely related to those ideas: his character, his past, his appearance, his associates, etc. These other things and the ideas they support may become permanently attached to that original idea. (This is also why I suggest that static may counter the effectiveness of transparency.)
On the other hand, if the meme is in the public realm, public figures may be openly professing it. Perhaps while the originator of the idea must blend into the framework, various champions of the idea can continue to operate openly; those may not profess originality but nonetheless support the meme. In fact, the originator can claim other sources -- "it is an idea that has been around, already" -- and work as an example for these other champions who can claim the same thing. Then, the meme enters the public domain, becomes accessible and useful to anyone wanting to build from it or advance it in peculiar ways -- no one can remember how the idea started or who started it, or at least few care about those particulars. (And so static may operate as a 'cover' for the original idea and the true originator?)