Links for…

• Reviewing: Nate Silver, 538: Politics Done Right: Some Post-Oscar Thoughts on Forecasting.
• Deep, deep thinking: John Hagel, John Seely Brown, and Lang Davison: Why do companies exist?:
  

  … our economy is chock-a-block with businesses that exist to maximize efficiency at scale. Businesses presuming predictability in order to push out mass produced products supported by mass marketing programs. Businesses relying on command and control in a world that’s increasingly difficult to command or control. Businesses losing their leadership positions at an ever-faster rate because they continue to push in a world gone pull.

  Yes, the death of command and control has been greatly exaggerated for years now. The early prognosticators, however, mistook the lead times required for deployment of the new digital infrastructure. They also missed how long it would take to develop the new social and business practices needed to harness the capabilities of our new infrastructure–capabilities that are only now becoming visible on the fertile edges of business and society.

  What we need, rather than a managerial philosophy based on the communications and transportation infrastructures of the 19th century, is one geared to the digital infrastructure of the 21st. We need a new rationale for our biggest private and public sector institutions–to re-imagine them in line with the world around us. Rather than scalable efficiency, we need scalable connectivity, learning, and performance. Rather than push, we need institutions that pull.

• Revisiting: Paul Graham, Startups in 13 Sentences.
• Noting: My comment on Ethan Bauley’s post to social / viral marketing lessons:
  

  Interestingly, I think we may be in a world where knowing HOW to use information (and information asymmetries) may be more important than the information itself. Information is a commodity, but how we structure it (and what we do with it = strategy) is still a source of competitive advantage.

  For now …

• Using: Cameron Moll, 20 tips for better conference speaking.
• Exploring for a day or two (or three): Big Bend National Park.

Catch you on the other side.