Spiders and Starfish

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Spiders and Starfish
Summary of a recent book, The Starfish and the Spider, by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom, another book about centralized versus decentralized organizations. The authors talk about a 'sweet spot' half way in between (say) Craigslist and department stores - but when the distributed alternatives work so well, one wonders what's so 'sweet' about breaking that model, even if only a little bit. More...