I have been thinking a lot about what happens when a leader gets under severe pressure, usually because things are not going according to plan. It seems to me this is the very essence of real leadership and where leaders can really justify their salaries. BUT according to Professor Dietrich Dorner, in his excellent book The Logic Of Failure: Recognizing And Avoiding Error In Complex Situations, there are two very tempting but ultimately disastrous tangents a leader can pursue in a crisis instead of addressing the real issues.

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Here is an interesting article which uses Wikipedia as an example of a collaborative multi-agent system (MAS) involving both human and non-human agents. The same approach could be used to map any collaborative system.

The 12th International Conference on Concurrent Enterprising (ICE 2006) will be held at the Palazzo delle Stelline, Milan, Italy, 26-28 June 2006. This is a major forum for practitioners, researchers and tool vendors to demonstrate and share the results of their work in the broad domain of Concurrent Enterprising, which is a combination of Concurrent Engineering and the Virtual/ Extended Enterprise. The theme of this year's conference is "Innovative Products and Services through Collaborative Networks ". For more details on the conference.

Brainz.org has a very good article which gives 15 excellent examples of designs inspired by nature (biomimicry or biomimetics).