‘Network Thinking’ – TEDxBerlin talk

We spend time thinking about ‘social networks’, and happily attend ‘networking’ events. And when we look at networks from a more academic perspective, we explore social graphs, mapping the connections between nodes. And yet, there is much more to networks. This talk makes a distinction between network infrastructure and network flows – the traffic that […]

Continue reading →

TedXKrakow: ‘How Things Spread’ – Mark Turrell

How do things spread? Ideas? Behavioral change? A brief run through the fundamental components of spread, and then some unusual examples of how to apply the concepts in oppressive societies – namely Zimbabwe and Libya. Presentation made in Sept 2012 at TedXKrakow and video produced by the TedX team.

Continue reading →

1. Introducing The Spread Papers

How do you spread things? How do you spread ideas? How do you spread behavioral change? How do you spread products and services? The Spread Papers is a collection of papers written by Mark Turrell that describe the emergent ‘Science of Spread’. In each paper, Mark develops a concept that underpins Spread, and highlights the […]

Continue reading →

TedXKrakow – my script for talk on “New Lens” plus Libyan Revolution

[holding glass / water bottle] In 1660, a ‘crazy’ Dutch scientist called Anton van Leeuwenhoek started writing scientific papers about how he saw small things moving about in water. The man was clearly mad. Because if you look at a glass of water with the naked eye, even if you really squint, you can’t see […]

Continue reading →

Working on sanitation and rural development in India – my interest in the Great WASH Yatra

Although I might have a reputation more on innovation, technology and revolution, I am deeply interested in applying my skills – and the science of spread – to all types of social challenge. So, when I came across WASH United, and their goal of improving human lives through better sanitation, I was very interested both […]

Continue reading →

North Korea – tourist destination opening soon

Food is a basic human need. You take it away from people, or make it too expensive to buy, and the people get angry. Very angry. Until they starve. And then it’s the survivors that take over. It was amazing that there was no revolution in North Korea during the last famine in the 1990s […]

Continue reading →

How to Establish a New Political Party – Part 3

Part 1 covered: 1) A party needs a leader – and leaders 2) Naming the Party 3) Balance is the Goal   Part 2 covered: 4) Key Functions of a New Party 5) From the Name – Signs, logos and Rituals 6) The Insane Importance of Press & PR   And now it is time […]

Continue reading →

How to Establish a New Political Party – Part 2

Continued from Part 1… 4) Key Functions of a New Party For the basics of a new party, you will need some cornerstone functions: Public Relations/Press Relations – you will grow (or wither) with the press, so this is a critical function. More on this later on. Security – bad people will want to hurt […]

Continue reading →

How to Establish a New Political Party – starting in Tahrir (Part 1)

This is just a thought experiment. I am not I Egypt, I am not part of the protest movement. I do like making millions of people happy – and less sad. And I believe people should be free to choose. And I do not like the obvious bad people. So, with this in mind, today’s […]

Continue reading →

Why Mushrooms hold the Secret to Contagion Ignition

“Follow your peers” “Keep doing what you are doing until there is a compelling reason to change” These are two very important, deeply simple rules of thumb, or heuristics, that help us as humans living in a complex world survive every moment of our existence. Without going into massive depth on the topic, we use […]

Continue reading →