The butterfly
effect
In 1972, Philip Merilees suggested that the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil can set off a tornado in Texas. This idea, known as the butterfly effect, is that a very small change initially could set off very large and significantly different outcomes.
In 2022, I would say that the roles and responsibilities of a business unit are equivalent to the butterfly effect; it can set off a collaborative interoperative complex infrastructure in cyberspace. It creates a digital transformation of the human interactions into a smart city, smart health, smart planet. It concocts a smart way of manipulating data and knowledge into an intelligent way of living and doing business, where collectively the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts.
Similar to the butterfly’s wing flapping ripple effect, in the cloud, in cyberspace, roles and responsibilities ripple effects take in big data, IoT, blockchain, artificial intelligence, machine learning, etc. to bring into realization a smart collaborative interoperative infrastructure most strive to achieve.
Whether this is in manufacturing, banking, government, commerce, education, or healthcare, the RKTEK effect is similar to the butterfly effect: an approach that is simple in its origin, and significantly complex in its accomplishments.