Comments on: Clockspeed and Business Genetics Reconsidered

By: SKMurphy » Venkatesh Rao Thought Provoking on Tempo at Bootstrapper Breakfast

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 06:43:21 +0000

[...] Clockspeed by Charles Fine [...]

By: Kari

Kari — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 16:54:01 +0000

As a molecular biologist, geneticist, theoretical computational chemist and now a systems engineer, I have had similar thoughts about the comparison of biological systems to digital ones. The concepts of ecology apply fairly well and tie in nicely with Clockspeed. I enjoyed your post (even this many years later) but I think you missed it on the biological metaphor for money.

I believe the biological equivalent to money is glucose. Similarities include the following observations:
some of it is required for life
if you run low, you are “hungry” for more
if you run out, you die
if you have some, you want more
if you have an excess, you get “fat” and “lazy”
those who are clever can make it out of other things
it is exchanged in one form or another through the ecosystem

I’d share my thoughts on DNA, but I need to get my dissertation done first!

By: Venkat

Venkat — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:43:08 +0000

That’s an interesting observation, that the best metaphoric thinking on business is not in business books. I wonder if it is due to a certain amount of left-brain machismo or maybe that it is easier for iz consultants to sell their expertise in non-metaphoric ways…Kelly’s thing was a little bit too much for me to finish (I may have been annoyed by the fact that a book with control in its title didn’t talk about control theory and dissed Norbert Wiener a bit). Haven’t seen Dennet’s book; will add it to my list. Thanks!

By: -alph-

-alph- — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 21:47:31 +0000

Venkat, good post. I haven’t read Clockspeed so should not comment directly on its merits or lack. I do agree that the analogies of business and biology are rich and underplumbed. But I HAVE found that sometimes the best business metaphors don’t get surfaced in business books, sometimes they appear in other disciplines. To that end, I would say I learned a lot of business from Kelly’s “Out of Control” or Dennett’s “Kinds of Minds” or even Scott’s “Seeing like a State.” We should chat sometime about “Kinds of Minds” in particular.

By: Venkat

Venkat — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 16:15:14 +0000

Charles, thanks for the refs. That’s the second reco for Morgan’s book in as many days, so I should definitely check that out.

Steve: yes, I think cell phones and cell towers would fit my model of “each product instance is a cell”, and extend it by being an organism with 2 cell types. Actually any network-based technology should map metaphorically to an organism with as many cell types as there are network node types. If everything is connected to the Internet, you get one giant organism, a metaphor I’ll explore in a later piece.

By: steve hoover

steve hoover — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 03:25:50 +0000

venkat, interesting piece. but wouldn’t cell phones (or maybe cell towers) be the original cells as part of an complex multicellular organism. interesting that even the name cell matches. complex behaviors through multi cell coordination certainly occur. anyways intersting metaphor to think through.

By: charles pfeffer

charles pfeffer — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 16:21:53 +0000

This is an interesting and potentially useful topic. For other treatments of the biological metaphor for organization and economy, I refer you to Bionomics (Michael Rothschild) and Gareth Morgan’s Images of Organization. Good luck with your further thinking on this topic!

By: mattst88 » Clockspeed and Business Genetics Reconsidered

mattst88 » Clockspeed and Business Genetics Reconsidered — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 20:25:54 +0000

[...] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerptNearly 10 years ago, in Clockspeed, Charles Fine of MIT revived a metaphor for the economy that goes back to at least Herbert Spencer’s essay, On The Social Organism (1860). A colleague recommended the book because I’ve lately been … [...]