Medici Effect: What You Can Learn from Elephants and Epidemics

CHAPTER eleven

	Break Out of Your Network
	ANTS AND TRUCK DRIVERS

IN THE EARLY 1990s Eric Bonabeau, an R&D engineer at France Telecom, and Guy Theraulaz, an ecologist studying social insects, met at a seminar held by the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico. They talked about, among other things, how ants find food.¹ Ten years later the techniques that were developed based on this conversation are helping petrol truck drivers plan their routes through the Swiss Alps. Now what, exactly, do foraging ants, Swiss petrol truck drivers, and telecommunications engineers have in common?

For starters, none of them wants to waste time. But while the insects find the quickest path to their destination, human counterparts often take longer routes. ...