In late November I presented a paper on Interaction IxDA South-America in 2009 speaking about Information Design applied to business. It is a case study, based on a project that I participated this year. Conclude the presentation saying that there is room in the market to be occupied by designers who understand the process, they can explain through pictures the company's problems.

For those who want to read, the article is here. The presentation is below.

I read an interesting book on networks for over 2 months (Linked, Albert-László Barabási), and I should talk about it here on the blog after this blackout last week.

The press is still discussing the real reasons of the incident (bad weather? Lack of investment?). I will not venture what the reason, but what everyone knows is that what happened was the result of a cascade effect, where different transmitters were knocking each other in sequence to wiping out 18 states.

Why? Because our electricity distribution is highly interconnected with hubs "connectors" that help different parts of the network to communicate, but at the same time, eventually setting up a weakness in the system. If a hub is dropped many points in the suffering.

What is interesting is that Linked he talks exactly about that, but using a lot of different examples. Even distribution of electricity, which gives about half pipe and there in the United States. Besides electricity, the book studies the characteristics of networks applied economics, relationships, viruses, cells, internet, scientists, movie stars and so on. And in each case the author is showing that the premises of the network are repeated, making us see the world through different eyes.

I recommend reading, but I have a few of the points that most caught my attention in the book:

• We have to take our ties "weak" with hubs

As people come more often to their new jobs: through indication of close friends or through "known"? Although not obvious (at least for me), research indicates that the second alternative is the strongest in the search for new jobs. That's because our friends usually move through the same places that we, living with the same people in our circle. The body of knowledge of them (such as "jobs") ends up being close to ours. But the "known" those with whom we spoke from time to time but are not as intimate as in open a new world of possibilities, in ways that do not circulate as often. So there is a greater chance of these contacts "weak", and not our closest friends, know that employment opportunities we are looking for.

Week ties play a crucial role in our abilitiy to communicate with the outside world. Often our close friends can offer us little help in finding a job. They move in the same circles we do and are inevitably exposed to the same information. To get new information, we have to activate our weak ties. "

• Hubs are critical to sustaining a network

Precisely because of this, it is important that there are hubs: points in the chain with more connections than the average. It is natural that they emerge in the networks - the web with the algorithm more intelligent, more social worker in the company, the dam more suitable for generating electricity, the company processes more efficient - and they allow distant points to communicate, even if not directly linked.

Even a few extra links are sufficiente to drastically decrease the average separation between nodes ... We can afford to be very provincial in choosing our friends, as long as a small fraction of the population has some long-range links. Huge networks do not need to be full of random links to display small world features. A few such links will do the job. "

• Hubs following pareto

Although the normal emergence of hubs, the total number in the total tends to regard a ratio of Pareto, with only 20% of us is responsible for the interconnection of 80% of the network. That is, nodes with few links are the majority, but they remain linked precisely because of the hubs.

In most real networks the majority of nodes have only a few links and these numerous tiny nodes coexist with a few big hubs, nodes with the anomalously high number of links. The few links connecting the smaller nodes to each other are not sufficient to Ensure that the network is fully connected. This function is secured by the relatively rare hubs that keep the real networks from falling apart. "

• The existence of hubs is a result of the networks, but also an inevitable weakness

These highly connected nodes give the network a high degree of tolerance against failure. Following Pareto, we could remove up to 80% of us, if the hubs are still there the network does not collapse. We may even lose some of the hubs, the other will continue supporting the system. But if there is a simultaneous attack on several hubs the consequences can be severe.

An example of loss of hub was the fall of Lehman Brothers last year, which affected the entire network (the economy) but not collapsed, because other hubs continure standing (Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Bank of America ...). Since the blackout was an example of multiple hubs falling at the same time (if I remember correctly were 5 important lines of distribution).

Every network configured this way (many of us + some weak hubs) has Inevitably a degree of vulnerability. This is because the hubs can fall. In other words: expect an interconnected grid is infallible is impossible.

Such vulnerability to atack is an inherent property of scale-free networks ... Disable a few of the hubs and the scale-free network will fall to pieces in no time. "

• Hubs do not generate innovation, but are early adopters

Normally, the innovations are not created in the hubs, which are perhaps too busy doing their connections:) But these highly connected nodes end up absorbing the innovations quickly because they are in contact with their creators. Since the innovation is adopted by a hub, it will pass to the rest of us weaker chain.

Innovations spread from innovators to hubs. The hubs in turn send the information in October along their numerous links, reaching most people within a given social or professional network. "

Moral of the story?

Agree that hubs emerge, they will hold your network and will link us weak. If the hubs are positive (eg renewable energy) search the optimal amount of them: a number too low will leave the network fragile, many hubs inhibit innovation. Take care of your hubs positive, the fall of several at the same time can collapse at network.

If the hubs are negative (eg, people infected by viruses), focus your attention on them. The collective return to the network is higher when the hubs are treated.

Funny how that applies to much. It's good to have a group of people very connected in a work environment (only one hub can make a mess when he leaves the company). It's good not to depend on only one major company in the country's economy (by this point I think we're doing well, with Petrobras beginning to have the company Vale, Gerdau, Unibanco, Itau, Embraer, JBS, Votorantim ...). It is good to invest in energy hubs around the country (Complex, Jirau ...). It's good to identify a weed in the garden (the hub negative attacks we are weak).

And you can not stay in the utopia of only rely on us weak long tail. Even with the Internet, advances in logistics and cost of production would not be very strategic rely solely on a host of smaller banks, power generation, diffuse, small businesses, independent professionals and that sort of thing. You can not fight against the very existence of "too big to fail", they remain there, is from the networks they arise. Even Chris Anderson has admitted that. Hubs are, still exist, and it is important to be managed for the collective success of the network.

A few days ago I wrote a post raising the possibility that perhaps our press was becoming more sophisticated, but this week has something happened that made me rethink this a bit:) Definitely not all vehicles that are following the same path.

The example I had used in the other post was the Leaf, I confess I quite like. They are critical, are proprietary and are doing a modern newspaper, with an emphasis on graphics and space for "mea culpa" excellent (session Ombudsman, published fortnightly).

But unfortunately not everyone is with this vision ... And that makes me most angry is to see. The most widely read magazine in the country, in my humble opinion, is increasingly fallen. It seems they are trying to reach a wider audience by making a sensationalist journalism. And I'm neither of those do you see the "capitalist pig", read and followed for a long time, but I have the impression that the quality has dropped sharply recently.

This week it is clear ... The covers of Look and Newsweek look pretty (reproduced below). The difference is, matters: while Newsweek talks about the possibility that we are entering another financial bubble - in fact, in an article great - see you talking about ... ... tchananan end of the world! What, between us, I think a super jabá the launch of his film in 2012 next week. All right, let it be a dried meat, because writing a stupid thing like that without even be making money, acting as the issue is indeed relevant to cover, really is very poor in spirit.

Although that is consistent with the covers that the magazine has been bringing in recent months: diet that works, hut the Globe actress, actor Globe addicted to drugs ...

Total disservice to the population.