... wirearchy ? Which term do you like better ?


I just ran across this whilst googling for something else. I noted that these two academics coined the term "hyperarchy" in 1997 ... that was the year I came up with "wirearchy". For my tastes, wirearchy is more evocative than hyperarchy, and more comprehensive ... the "hyper" refers to hyperlinks, while "wire" can cover that off and include the surround-sense of middleware and integarted systems (which imo have much more impact on our lives, our instritutions, our business models, and our sociology than many people realize or give them credit for.

Anyway ... introducing "hyperarchy", by Evans and Wurster. My emphasis and sardonic comments added.


The word "hyperarchy" was defined by Philip Evans and Thomas Wurster in the Harvard Business Review, September-October 1997, Page 75. Evans and Wurster suggest that digital communication enables everybody to communicate interactively with everybody (duh !).

The term takes its name from the "hyperlinks" of the World Wide Web and the "hierarchy" of current commerce models. Not only is the WWW a hyperarchy ... but so too is a deconstructed hierarchical supply chain within an industry ... and also object-oriented programming in software or packet switching in telecommunications. "The hyperarchy challenges all hierarchies, whether of logic or of power, with the possibility (or the threat) of random access and information symmetry," say Evans and Wurster. They subsequently released a book in 2000 on the hyperarchy: Blown to Bits: How the New Economics of Information Transforms Strategy

A hyperarchy is the inverse of a pyramid, the antithesis of a hierarchy


And ... of course ... they left the sociology of interaction - the stuff of life and society - more or less out of (this extract).