Teeming: how superorganisms work to build infinite wealth in a finite world

by Tamsin Woolley-Barker

For hundreds of millions of years, ants and termites and vast underground fungal networks have worked together in huge cities, tens of millions strong, compounding their wealth from one generation to the next with no management whatsoever. With just four simple principles—Collective Intelligence, Distributed Leadership, Swarm Creativity, and Regenerative Value—Dr. Tamsin Woolley-Barker’s groundbreaking new book, Teeming, shows how these diverse and independent individuals pool their experience to creat rich hotspots of abundance. Dr. Woolley-Barker is an evolutionary biologist and biomimicry pioneer whose work shows how business can mimic the techniques of superogranisms to create generating long-lasting value in an unpredictable world.

Genres: Science, Buisness

319 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2017

Reviews

[Aaron · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the author makes some interesting comparisons between the animal kingdom and human communities, organizations, etc I found the analogies a bit spiraling. I think there are interesting habits of superorganisms in nature that are similar to sapians but did not find a compelling argument that we would be better off mimicing any particular trait. A sidenote is that the version I read was rife with typos which I’m not normally one to comment on.

[Misty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Compelling concept but lacked any true hypothesis or conclusions

[Nanette · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this deep dive into super-organisms: mycorrhizal fungi, ants, bees, termites, naked mole rats, ... and humans! I was less a fan of all the business jargon although I understand that it's in the title of the book. Fascinating to peek into each superorganism's life. Many great insights about how to balance the tension of independence and close collaboration. Luckily, the author is not advocating that we all become sterile workers and choose a queen to birth all of our children - the way ants and bees do. But the answer certainly isn't to consolidate wealth into a tiny fraction of the population.

I particularly enjoyed the concluding chapter that gives a brief history of organisms altering the environment. I often think of nature being in great harmony, where the byproducts of one species are certain to be the food of another. But the earth's atmosphere has actually been drastically altered by organisms many times, including when they started releasing so much oxygen they caused a huge extinction. Eventually some lucky critters evolves to take advantage of that new abundant chemical. Now I am praying that some plastic eating bacteria will evolve and to save us from ourselves. Until then, we still have to figure out how to reconcile our dueling hierarchical, dominant ape self and ant-like hyper-collaborative self.

[Juan Gonzalez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great ideas and easy to implement

Teeming makes collaboration a reality in our world and gives us clear ideas on what to do and what not to do to enhance our organizations performance.

[Sarah Light · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found the ideas in this book to be fairly simple to implement in life. Some of the comparisons were a bit far-fetched, but I was able to understand where the author was coming from.

[Rick Lindeman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great but a little naive

A great exploration of the World of biomimicry. In a way the Book i wanted to Write, but it is complete naive hoe humans operate in the gig economy