I went to a panel discussion titled "Distributed Intelligence and Cognition" the other day, and came up with some pretty interesting ideas. I was particularly inspired by the presentation of an English composition teacher who talked about how a disengaged and slightly hostile class became more engaged and responsible, when she delegated "executive function" to the students. The students were opposed to the way the class was structured, so she let the students decide on a few key elements (for example, in how to schedule student presentations). Basically, by giving her students more responsibility, they also became more responsible, and overall productivity was improved. This in turn reminded me of how Google is structured, and how well it's worked for them. While walking home from the discussion, I tied in the whole thing with my idea that all complex systems are networks and everything fell into place. To top things off, I had a 2000 word paper due, so I talked to Dirivish for a while, and then I wrote it all down.