Cambridge, Mass just may be one of the world’s Ground Zeros of SuccessImagine over a dozen brilliant scientists who have been exploring concepts of success—from why some hashtags go viral to why certain types of leaders can save or destroy the organizations they lead—being brought together for one day to share their knowledge.
On June 17th we had the great fortune to be invited to speak at just such a gathering The Science of Success Symposia at Harvard. Actually we weren’t one of the brilliant scientists, but we were invited to participate because we had interviewed so many high acheivers for our book “The Art of Doing.”
The symposia was organized by Albert-László Barabási of the Center of Complex Network Research at Northeastern University and was hosted by the Institute of Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University. We had the chance to listen to (and hang out with) this multidisciplinary group of computer scientists, physicists, mathematicians, economists and biologists. They went at success as scientists do: they made models, collected data and measured and quantified aspects of success. They were also very entertaining as they posed some of the biggest questions of life—who or what succeeds and why—and then set about to answer them.
At the dinner at the Harvard Faculty Club, Laszlo introduced a novel game of musical chairs. After each course everyone born on certain months had to switch seats, so that by the end, we had a chance to talk with just about everybody.
Stay tuned! We look forward to covering the fascinating research from the symposia in the coming months.
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