This accelerating tendency leads to path dependence , that is, an eventual lock-in to a particular technology, approach, or system, even if that is not the most efficient or productive. For example, in creating our Web sites, we may find similar tendencies pressuring us to follow the latest trends in Web design just because so many of our users have gotten used to them. Phase transitions take place when the objects within a system multiply exponentially, moving the system from one phase to another. Clearly we are witnessing an enormous growth in the number of rhetorical objects on the Web, and that growth has taken us to a new level, in which we see emergent behaviors , that is, behavior we did not see before, when we faced less volume. Examples include building chat systems into our documentation, regarding email as a way to develop new materials for our users, changing our role from sole creator to editor, or facilitator.
Control is dispersed , in such an evolving system.
No one person is in charge, no company, no consortium really dictates what appears on the Web. It appears to have a life of its own. It constantly probes the edge of chaos, risking complete anarchy, but, as a result of billions of individual decisions by all of us agents, the Web keeps on adapting to the present, changing in a way that mimics a conscious lifeform growing from cell to tissue to organ to body. In turn, managers are going to need to reconsider the way they assign staff to projects, and monitor work. Similarly, you may have to measure productivity by the number of emails responded to, number of postings to the bulletin board, number of updates, rather than on-time delivery of a particular manual.