The origin of bursts and heavy tails in human dynamics

The dynamics of many social, technological and economic phenomena are driven by individual human actions, turning the quantitative understanding of human behavior into a central question of modern science. Current models of human dynamics, used from risk assessment to communications, assume that human actions are randomly distributed in time and thus well approximated by Poisson processes. In contrast, there is increasing evidence that the timing of many human activities, ranging from communication to entertainment and work patterns, follow non-Poisson statistics, characterized by bursts of rapidly occurring events separated by long periods of inactivity. Here we show that the bursty nature of human behavior is a consequence of a decision based queuing process: when individuals execute tasks based on some perceived priority, the timing of the tasks will be heavy tailed, most tasks being rapidly executed, while a few experience very long waiting times. In contrast, priority blind execution is well approximated by uniform interevent statistics. These findings have important implications from resource management to service allocation in both communications and retail.Comment: Supplementary Material available at http://www.nd.edu/~network

Nurturing Breakthroughs: Lessons from Complexity Theory

A general theory of innovation and progress in human society is outlined, based on the combat between two opposite forces (conservatism/inertia and speculative herding "bubble" behavior). We contend that human affairs are characterized by ubiquitous ``bubbles'', which involve huge risks which would not otherwise be taken using standard cost/benefit analysis. Bubbles result from self-reinforcing positive feedbacks. This leads to explore uncharted territories and niches whose rare successes lead to extraordinary discoveries and provide the base for the observed accelerating development of technology and of the economy. But the returns are very heterogeneous, very risky and may not occur. In other words, bubbles, which are characteristic definitions of human activity, allow huge risks to get huge returns over large scales. We outline some underlying mathematical structure and a few results involving positive feedbacks, emergence, heavy-tailed power laws, outliers/kings/black swans, the problem of predictability and the illusion of control, as well as some policy implications.Comment: 14 pages, Invited talk at the workshop Trans-disciplinary Research Agenda for Societal Dynamics (http://www.uni-lj.si/trasd in Ljubljana), organized by J. Rogers Hollingsworth, Karl H. Mueller, Ivan Svetlik, 24 - 25 May 2007, Ljubljana, Sloveni

What are we Aligning? Implications of a Dynamic Approach to Alignment

Of the hundreds of papers written on alignment, many build on a framework established fifteen years ago, which characterises alignment as a dynamic process operating between four domains. Since then, the organisational and technological landscape has been radically transformed. This paper reviews key concepts in the alignment literature and comments on their development over time, and their ability to reflect current organisational contexts, including blurring of boundaries, and rapid and unpredictable change. It finds that there have been several new developments regarding “how” alignment occurs. However, almost all these developments are grounded in the original four domain model of “what” is being aligned. This paper suggests that some models of alignment could be strengthened by considering alternatives to this four domain model. Drawing on other work on the dynamics of human-technological interaction, some ideas are given as to how this task might be approached

Signals of Transition in Crisis Management: Insights from a Study of Social Media Use in Public Service Organizations

In crisis informatics, little attention is placed on how transitions occur between periods of crisis and non-crisis. The analysis of transition behaviors in organizations could respond to both the cyclicality of risk and crisis management, and the need for continuity of services provided to the community. In studying transitions, we focus on social media use as a support system. Thus, with the objective to gain an insight into how sociotechnical systems navigate through periods of crisis and non-crisis, we leverage individual experiences that rely on social media as a source of information in public service organizations and developers of social media analytics support tools. The main contribution of this study is the explanation and conceptualization on how transitions happen by framing social media as a support system of information for crisis management. In addition, we highlight the return to a new steady-state, an overlooked area of organizational transitions and continuity