Scale Tradeoffs and Transformations
Seed idea: Can scale tradeoffs show us when to apply bottom-up vs. top-down design strategies? With connections to writing, team communication, and new product development.
Intro: 00:00
Phases of concretizing: articulating the idea vs. getting to the idea
Part 1: 02:40
Scale transformations, scale tradeoffs, examples of multiscale systems
Mentioned:
Phases of concretizing: articulating the idea vs. getting to the idea
Part 1: 02:40
Scale transformations, scale tradeoffs, examples of multiscale systems
Mentioned:
- The New England Complex Systems Institute's founder, Yaneer Bar-Yam
- Yaneer's book Making Things Work. See Chapter 4 for scale tradeoffs and the military example.
- Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety
Part 2: 16:45
Tweeting vs. writing an article as examples of different scales, bottom-up and top-down order
Mentioned:
- Tweet on phases of new product development: R&D, Production, and Cleanup
Part 3: 29:49
Launching a new product, a scale transition from separate conversations to a group announcement
Mentioned:
- Basecamp's new email app and service, Hey.com
Summary: 38:22
The end of "R&D mode" as a scale transformation, experiment at smalls scale to find parameters at large scale