The New Web part 3

-- continued from The New Web part 2

The current state of the web is not chaotic, it is evolutionary in essence, though it may seem chaotic from several perspectives. It is not static. It is, and will remain a highly dynamic environment. Because of the sheer amount of people on-line it is not knowable; because you can never be sure someone will not invent a $100 pc that will allow people to share each other’s wifi connections ad hoc, creating a whole new set of possibilities. ;)

So the web is a complex place, just as the world and its social, cultural, biological and political entities upon it are. Its interactions are knotted, intertwined and heavily distributed without a single center of control or regulation. It behaves in an unpredictable way and often acts hypocritical and unpredictable. The key to define the web or even the new web is to research it.

This research, by its very essence of its subject, needs to be iterative. The results, and more importantly its goals, need to be fine tuned and re-adjusted every time and again. The nature of the subject is changing in mid-research. It is not a static entity. The web is changing as you research it.

So in researching the web it is important to set goals, and track goals. Track their validity; is this still what we need? In web projects this could relate to; do we still need to address the problem we are addressing, or have we learned that we have exposed other more pressing problems, or that the problem has gone away by itself?

If the goals are constantly shifting, you better adjust your aim as well. A lot of research might go into what the actual goal, or problem actually is.

When you are tracking your goal, you must also find a way to measure your effectiveness, your progress if you will, towards pertaining it. Simple tools that allow you to monitor: Are we getting nearer to our goal? What was the situation were we left off? Did we make any progress? How are we doing? What do we need to do next?

Organizations that are implementing these research-like development methods as a production philosophy on the web are now slowly surfacing on the web as successful. Organizations that are finding the ability to interface with the web, that care to listen to its voices, its feelings and its opinions are in the evolutionary stage of higher chances to survive then those who don’t.

That does not mean the adaptables have conquered the world. No. It is a long time before that. But agile companies are emerging from within the web, software development and production and they can become successful very quickly. In addition, the research subject itself is also helping to distribute its findings and important data. Artifacts are being distributed around the world at light speed. The very essence the internet was used for. Research papers can be common knowledge in a week or two or less.

A lot of the intermediate results are there for you to examine and a lot of the resulting conclusions can be drawn pretty quickly. Successful behavior can be copied, or mimicked, and in a knowable system, this can lead to success too.

But in a complex system like the internet, which is also intertwined with modern society, you have to verify goals. Are they still the same, or have they shifted? Is what we copied working for us, for our clients? Is this behavior bringing us closer to our goals? Are we solving the problem that really matters?

How do you know which ones to copy anyway? How do you recognize the centers of evolution at work? The evolutionary successes of tomorrow are not the large numbers of today. If you hang with the masses, you have a pretty good chance of surviving today. But the epicenters of evolution are not marked by high signals. They are small, relatively insulated pockets of change giving off weak signals. How can we locate and identify those pockets?

-- to be continued

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