Eva Durant wrote,
>Very interesting, but what is the point?
Ah ha! Eva, you gave me the straight line I was fishing for. Thank you.
The POINT IS the point of inflection. The three quotations that I forwarded
to the list yesterday all came up in the first ten hits of an Alta Vista
search on the phrase "point of inflection". They contained discussions of
the point of inflection with regard to population growth, the value of
financial investments and the growth of industrial production.
The point of inflection is the point on a logistic curve (an 'S' shape
leaning forward) where the steepness of the slope begins to decrease. It is
thus the point where "growth" begins to decelerate. There are several points
on a curve that could be used to discuss the idea of "decline". The two that
get the most attention are the end point or point of extinction and the peak
or point of reversal.
In terms of planning, strategy or "steering capacity", however, those two
crisis points are "beside the point"(or "after the fact"), so to speak. They
offer little more than confirmation of a fait accompli. An example of
responding to a crisis at it's peak would be sending out sandbaggers after a
flooding river breached its banks. Such a response is, by definition, "too
little and too late."
If one wants to intervene to fix a problem, therefore, the point of
inflection is the pre-crisis point that gives the first clear signal that
the crisis is coming and precisely when it is likely to come. The point of
inflection is the "canary in the statistical coal mine."
In detective story terms, the point of inflection is the "clue" that allows
the detective to solve the mystery. The clue appears *before* the climax.
Regards,
Tom Walker
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