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Category Archives: Complexity
Not what it is rather what it is not
I first heard the term “via negativa” in Taleb’s Antifragile. I thought it time I dig a little deeper into the idea. The term itself is theological in origin. In essence we have two ways of knowing God. Either “via positiva” … Continue reading
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The dangers of ROI based on low conversion rates
You have a large ecommerce website.You want to make small incremental improvements to the performance of the website. You can measure the impact via an increase in profits. Everything sounds pretty simple. Just run small experiments on everything from the user … Continue reading
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The Roll the Dice Once Fallacy
It was Stephen Hawking who noted, The laws of science, as we know them at present, contain many fundamental numbers, like the size of the electric charge of the electron and the ratio of the masses of the proton and … Continue reading
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Antifragile: Measuring Complexity
This post forms part of series I’m doing following the 2 day course I attended in Boston. Yaneer Bar-Yam was speaking along side Nassim N. Taleb. It might be easier to think about the simple first. What makes something simple? … Continue reading
Posted in Agile, Antifragile, Complexity
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Antifragility: A User’s Manual
I’ve just returned from a two-day program for senior management run by the NECSI as part of the Executive Education programme. The program’s strapline was ‘Learn to thrive in a volatile and complex world by creating Antifragile organizations that thrive on … Continue reading
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Antifragile: Black Swans
The term black swan was originally used to describe something as impossible. Back then no-one had seen such a beast. Later when one was found in Australia the meaning changed. It was then used to characterise the thing that once … Continue reading
Posted in Agile, Antifragile, Complexity
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Cellular Automata: Simple beginnings
I’m not sure how old I was when I first created a cellular automata. I suspect in my early teens, sat in front of a BBC Micro typing in the Basic code for Conway’s Life from a magazine. At the … Continue reading
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Conflict, complexity and the use of language
In recent team meetings I’ve been involved in a lot of conversations that seem to quickly escalate into arguments based on a misunderstanding of the words we’re using. Words like intervention, disrespect and even something as simple as experiment are … Continue reading
Posted in Agile, Complexity
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