Readers here at Elemental Links know that I’m an idea collector.  I’m constantly on the look out for interesting articles in business, news and trade journals that either relate to my current work, or more likely, provide fodder for future work.

Lately, I’ve been highlighting these discoveries over on Active Information.  This week, I discuss an intriguing piece in the Economist’s Technology Quarterly on Game Theory in Practice.  Check out the Active Information post.

This week on Active Information I highlight an article on IT Failure from the September Issue of Harvard Business Review that is focused on Managing Complexity.

The authors describe what they learned by taking a radically different approach to the study of IT Failures.  Ignoring averages and general trends, they worked from the Black Swan principle that “rare events can be more significant than average ones — and may occur more often than we think”.

Their findings were quite enlightening.  Standish, et al, take notice.  Even better, they offer new investment guidelines that every CxO should be aware of.

Read my Active Information post.