The Slime Mold: A Complex Adaptive System

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CNN's John Sutter has been working on a book about how companies can be more like slime molds. A slime mold is an example of a complex adaptive system with no particular intelligence, but acting as a colony. This project will look at the ways in which this concept could be applied to corporate culture and business practices.

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Why do organizations get slower as they grow? What can organizations learn from slime molds? What are the advantages of top-down organization versus bottom-up organization, and vice versa? How can organizations encourage serendipity? What use are doorbells in jungles? Why is it so hard for organizations to set a "north star" that is at once plausible, coherent, and good?

Alex Komoroske has over a decade of experience in the tech industry as a product manager focusing on platform- and ecosystem-shaped problems. While at Google, he worked on Chrome's Web Platform PM team, Augmented Reality in Google Maps, and Ambient Computing. He's fascinated by how to navigate the emergent complexity within organizations to achieve great results. You can find some of his public writing at komoroske.com.

Staff