Swarming System Analysis Tools
What if we could model the interaction of teams the same way that we model the behavior of slime-molds, ants, and other simple organisms? What if we could specify some rules and then watch our artificial system run. What would we look for in our patterns that would indicate a desirable outcome?
This is certainly not an original idea on my part – In Swarm Creativity: Competitive Advantage through Collaborative Innovation Networks Peter Gloor talks about a tool they used to model these “Innovation Networks”. Of course you might say that the “Sim” games are a classic example of this sort of tool (Spore, theSims). Another example can be found at BioTeams where Ken Thompson focuses on the role of new communication tools to foster swarm like behavior (cell phone texting, IM, Twitter, Friend Feed, etc.).
Cool stuff. Check it out.