An Age Of Hyper-Connectivity

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><root available-locales="en_US," default-locale="en_US"><static-content language-id="en_US"><![CDATA[<p>In December 2009, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Internet, the US Defense Department launched a national challenge. They released ten numbered red balloons at different undisclosed locations across the US. The challenge was for any individual or team to find the exact locations of all ten balloons and the reward offered was $40,000.<br><br>Mathematically, this is a problem that cannot be solved by known algorithmic techniques. Nevertheless, the winning team from MIT located all ten balloons in less than 9 hours. This is considered an impressive achievement, not just for the&nbsp; short time taken to solve the challenge but also for the innovative nature of the solution technique employed.<br><br>The winning MIT team exploited social networks and the hyper-connectivity of society to reach out to individuals across the world and to encourage them to either submit the locations of the balloons (if they knew it) or to encourage someone else who may know the location to participate. A cascaded system of rewards was employed to reward people for either giving the location of a balloon themselves or having identified someone who did.<br><br>Imagine the power of the above solution for solving real world problems like locating a missing child or pinpointing known terrorists. To leverage hyper-connectivity, organisations are reaching out to people outside their boundaries to tackle complex problems that they cannot solve individually. The American video rental firm, Netflix used crowd-sourcing techniques to improve the accuracy of video rental suggestions by more than 30 per cent. Using a prize of $1m for the winning team, Netflix attracted hundreds of scientists and engineers from around the world who submitted complex mathematical solutions to help improve the firm's algorithms.<br><br>Technology is an important (but not the only factor) driving our growing inter-dependencies. Consider the global nature of the financial crisis over the last years. Capital flows freely across boundaries and risk scenarios are inter-linked thus leading at times to contagion and financial pressures in multiple markets. Global trade is highly inter-connected and changes in key factors such as currency rates in one part of the world can have far reaching impacts in distant locations. Epidemics and health problems are also more mobile given trends in global migration and increased ease of travel with modern planes and trains.<br><br>It is clear that we are living in an age of hyper-connectivity. This will only increase with time. Hyper-connectivity can cut both ways. It can help you as in the Netflix example. Or it can hurt you as with financial contagions or the viral spread of a negative message. Either ways, you have to be prepared for it. Do you have a choice?<br><br><br>The author is the Roland Berger Chaired Professor of Business and Technology at INSEAD, France.&nbsp; He has authored&nbsp; several books on technology, policy and innovation.<br><br>Comments on this note can be sent to: mail(at)soumitradutta(dot)com</p>