“The 80/20 Rule”. Barabási, Albert-László. Linked: The New Science of Networks. Cambridge (MA): Perseus, 2002.
In this weeks reading I discovered really interesting rule, devised by Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto who created the “80/20” rule (funnily enough, he himself never referred to it as this). Pareto observed this phenomenon while gardening, where he noticed that 80% of his peas were produced by only 20% of the pea-pods, which lead him to a broader study showing that 80% of Italy’s land was owned by only 20% of Italy’s population. It is interesting to read how many examples of this there are out there in the world. I was trying to think of my own example and it took me back to memories of Year 12 whereby i’d devise 10 potential designs for a product, and only properly work on two. I certainly have to agree that it’s indeed possible to “assume” this 80/20 rule/phenomenon can apply to pretty much everything out there in the world, but realistically it’s not the case. A successful link though, is between the 80/20 rule and our understanding of networks. Pareto states that a network can follow a bell curve structure, and can also have nodes. Meaning that the epicentre of the network has “branches” that extend out, broadening the overall physical expansion of the network.
