GENIUS OF THE WASTED TRIP

It’s been another month of AI buzz. And in the rush, the hypegeist missed what businesses can learn from bees.

A honey bee comes home from a field in full flower and dances the directions. The movements communicate everything her sisters need to know – a map drawn deep in the hive.

Von Frisch earned a Nobel Prize for interpreting it decades ago. 

And now researchers have found that the waggle improves when the right bees gather round. Fill the floor with youngsters too green to follow and it gets a bit sloppy, directions blur.

But how did the boogying bee find the fresh field in the first place?

It has to take a risk -  stray from the pack and cross unpromising ground, often for nothing.

And three mathematicians have now modelled how a leaderless colony should divide that risk. A daring few need to fly exploratory missions, even when the odds do not cover the cost. The patient many, waiting - until the evidence arrives. Then moving swiftly together.

They found the right decentralised split can match the impact of an optimal central planner. And, as the colony grows, explorer numbers rise only logarithmically. Meaning a bigger hive needs more scouts, but an increasingly small fraction.

So where is the insight for businesses seeking to become AI native?

At Brightbeam we’ve found that AI scouts - colleagues given time to experiment with new ways of working with digital intelligence - are the optimal method of discovery.

Central planning tends to slow the process down - flowing information through hierarchies necessarily takes more time. The trade-off - embracing a higher risk of failure in return for greater scouting speed - seems to be paying off.

And, once promising results have been found, it is indeed important to communicate the findings to the right people. Who are often more experienced in the way our hive works than the newest recruits. Grey hair (relatively speaking) brings the wisdom of better decision-making.

Plus, as we grow we do need more scouts. Because team functions are also expanding. But scouts are a decreasing proportion of our total colleagues because the core of what we do is evolving rather than expanding.

What do we have to take on the chin? Wasted time. Frustration. Experiments which fail. A series of dead-ends which make working weeks look unproductive. And that takes collective patience.

But, when the evidence turns up, that patience must end. The majority needs to move, carrying the discovery into workflows, training and everyday use.

Because a genuine discovery no one absorbs is just another solitary flight.

So what did the hypegeist miss?

Scouts matter. So does the dance. And who is in the room to watch it. When seeking to build an AI native organisation, therefore, you could do worse than be inspired by bees.

It’s time to do the waggle dance.