Herriot Research

A passion for creativity, novelty, the "New". Creativity and imagination have always been important -- but are dramatically more critical today than ever. As markets change ever faster, the industrial spotlight has shifted from productivity to creativity. Repeating what we did yesterday today is a going-out-of-business strategy. Rather, we must invent new ways of adapting to rapidly changing market landscapes.

80+% of the prosperity generated in the 20th century came from products and ideas which DID NOT EXIST before 1900. Hence the "new" is not only interesting, it is extremely valuable.

Is there a science of creativity? Yes! We call this "generative science".

Classical science has thrived on repetition. Hydrogen plus oxygen make water today, yesterday, a billion years ago. In contrast, generative science is about the unrepeatable.

In the ecosphere, new species come into being which HAVE NEVER EXISTED BEFORE. Life is generative. Likewise, economies are generative. Our minds are generative. Our organizations can be generative.

Can we "help out" this naturally generative process? Yes!

Herriot Research focuses on 10 areas of investigation and presentation:

[All of the above 10 interest areas will soon link to more detailed web pages. Stay tuned.]

All of this comes under the general rubric of "generative science" or Complexity Science. We take a page from evolutionary biology. Organisms have been solving very hard, complex network problems for four billion years. Today we are building a body of science to transfer powerful insights from nature, and apply them to minds, organizations, economies -- even our own subjective lifestyles!

We are living at the historical gateway of the most creative period in human history.

Origins of Herriot Research

Herriot Research was founded to investigate a number research areas including complex systems, cognitive modeling, analogies, and Java related systems. Herriot Research developed a number of specialized tools or "applets" in Java designed to vastly accelerate these research efforts. The main such tool is NetLab, an interactive software "laboratory" aimed at exploring and understanding complex networks, etc. Early versions are available to "test drive" under "models" below.

Herriot Research has contracts with a number of companies to perform research and deliver presentations in these fields. Herriot Research is located in Palo Alto, California. Our phone number for voice and fax is 650.329.1500.

BiosGroup in Santa Fe, NM

BiosGroup, Inc. is the world leader in complex adaptive systems based solutions. I serve as Vice President, Science, at BiosGroup, Inc.

Information on the BiosGroup, including self-organizing and self-optimizing systems, is available at: www.biosgroup.com.

Institute for the Future in Menlo Park, CA

I am a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for the Future www.iftf.org in Menlo Park, California.

Presentations, Strategy, Executive Briefings

Jim Herriot is currently on academic leave from JavaSoft, Sun Microsystems, doing research on cognitive modeling. While on leave, I continue to give frequent keynote talks and other presentations.

I give a variety of talks on Complexity Science, Cognitive Science, Java and its many facets. Talks are available by request. For additional information, and speaking availability, please send me email or call / fax me at 650.329.1500.

Cognitive Modeling

I am currently building computer models of human cognition and analogies using Java. I am working with Doug Hofstadter's CRCC group at the University of Indiana and collaborating with Stuart Kauffman of the Santa Fe Institute and the Bios Group also in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I am gradually publishing some of my models here.


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