Swarming Resources
Here are some of the books and web sites that researched as part of my investigations into swarming. There are a few that I should probably re-read too. That said, if you are interested in swarming, you could use some of these references for starting points.
Books
The Wisdom of Crowds – James Suroweicki
Suroweicki’s book was my introduction to the power of self-organizing groups. He is a very engaging writer. It’s a fun read and serves as a good starting point for further research.
Bioteams – Ken Thompson
The Thompson book is the first that I found that attempts to apply the theory of swarming to teams of people. It’s oriented to the use of mobile devices and does a good job of positing the simple rules that might be used by swarming teams.
Emergence – Steven Johnson
Steven Johnson’s book is similar to Suroweiki’s, but Johnson’s work is more thorough and academic in tone. He does a great job of explaining some very complicated ideas well.
Micromotives and Macro Behavior – Thomas Schelling
This guy is a nobel laureate in economics, so I guess he knows what he’s talking about. I loved the introductory chapters, but after that he lost me. It gets really dense really fast.
The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations – Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom
I really loved this book. Brafman and Beckstrom did a fabulous job of writing a very engaging book about self-organizing…organizations. This book does the best job of giving you real examples of groups of people swarming.
Swarm Creativity – Peter Gloor
Peter Gloor’s book is mostly focused on swarming as a way of driving innovation in teams. He also examines ways that we can find collaborative networks (COINS) within existing organizations.
Swarm Intelligence: A Whole New Way to Think about Business – Eric Bonabeau and Christopher Meyer
Bonabeau and Meyer have made the transition from academics to business. They take the principles of swarming and apply them to business problems.
Web sites
BioTeams – Companion to the book
Systems Thinking – A catalog of systems theory and emergent behavior links
CalResCo Complexity Writings – a collection of academic papers on emergent and complex behavior
Swarm Theory – a great Nat Geo article about swarming
Boids – If you want to play with simulations of swarming behavior, this is a great start
The Science of Biological Swarms
Swarm Creativity – companion site to Peter Gloor’s book
Research Project from the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence
Links on Complexity, Self-Organization and Artificial Life
Swarm Intelligence – more links