Scientists at Queen Mary, University of London and Royal Holloway have discovered that bees learn to fly the shortest possible route between flowers even if they discover the flowers in a different order. In doing this they are effectively solving the challenging 'Travelling Salesman Problem' and despite their small brains are the first creatures discovered who can do this.

Building Community and Computer Simulation are two of my hot topics. So it really grabbed my attention when Channel 4 Education announced a forthcoming game, Fallen City, to let us explore how our cities might be mended by empowering communities.

When trust levels are high, so is the quality and performance of business and the reverse is also true. These facts are demonstrated dramatically when we look at the financial outcomes of companies that are among the best to work for and their peer companies that aren't.

The BBC Nature site reports on research published in the journal Naturwissenschaften which has discovered that a certain species of stinging ant may grab a fellow worker in their jaws and take them with them to help manage large food items they cannot carry by themselves.

I am looking forward to speaking and running a workshop on High Performing Teams at ECCIXII - the 12th European Conference on Innovation and Creativity in Portugal (Faro) from September 14-17.

Very interesting article by Matthew Syed, a former Commonwealth table tennis champion. which suggests that experts (Unconsciously Competent) can suddenly flip under stress to "beginner mode" (Consciously Competent) with the accompanying degradation in their performance.

The Guardian reports David Cameron as declaring war on "The public sector procurement managers who think that the answer to everything is a big contract with a big business and who shut out millions of Britain's small- and medium-sized companies from a massive potential market."

The Guardian reports on the growth in "Persona Management Software" which individuals use to engage in web conversations using multiple identities on forums and social sites. The aim is to create the perception of a (fake) upswell in sentiment on a given topic (a practice is known as astroturfing). The most disturbing revelation is that the US Air Force have tendered for such software.

New McKinsey research shows that a payday could be arriving faster than expected. "A new class of company is emerging--one that uses collaborative Web 2.0 technologies intensively to connect the internal efforts of employees and to extend the organization's reach to customers, partners, and suppliers. We call this new kind of company The Networked Enterprise".

Major Article in Stategy + Business Magazine about how companies, governments, and other organizations are working together across traditional boundaries to solve problems which are too big for one enterprise to solve by itself.