Diversity is the Key to Survival

In the summer of 2007, the US stock market plummeted by 5%. In the same week FTSE lost about 5.6%, Israeli TA 25 Index dripped 7% and Australia exchange shed 3%. This was mirrored across the global stock markets. Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, India and China all followed suit. As the financial instruments of the developing and the developed countries have started to look alike "we have voluntarily narrowed our options to the point of jeopardizing our ability to survive."
Nature, does not condone singularity. It leads to extinction.

Rebecca Costa in her book, The Watchman's Rattle: Thinking Our Way Out of Extinction, says, in evolutionary terms, diversity acts like a genetic insurance policy—to guard against the complete eradication of species. This is reason why there are  17,500 species of butterflies in the world, and around 750 species in the United States (Encyclopedia Smithsonian). A species that develops a broad range of characteristics and behaviors—wide diversity—increases its odds of surviving a broad range of environmental challenges. In December 2004, when the great Tsunami claimed more than 150,000 lives, the stone age tribes of the Andaman and Nicobar islands escaped unscathed because they took to the forests and higher ground well in time.

Dr. Yaneer Bar-Yam of Harvard University exposes the critical role diversity plays as complexity in business grows: "A system performs well in facing complex challenges when it has high variety. We can understand this in the case of the modern economy and technological and corporate innovation." The greater the diversity of ideas, products and services, the more effectively businesses can respond to dramatic shifts and changes. For that reason, Apple has products that ranges from defining nano life style to the dream machines of the 3D designers and artists. For that very same reason, the latitude of Skyline products range from extreme portability to custom modularity and not to mention more than 30 elastic product lines in-between. For that very same reason, exhibit designers of our times should incorporate the essence of the brand in the visuals, architecture and of course, need-less to say in the interactivity that is the hallmark of face-face-marketing.

Socio-biologists confirm that some 5 million years ago, with the development of two-legged locomotion, our brains experienced intricate adaptation to an "avalanche of new sensory complexity". If that is true, we are yet again undergoing paramount  changes in the frontal cortex, the area that processes complexity. We are on for an interesting ride!

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