Emergence and Enron

I know little about Enron beyond what I've read in the paper, but this HBS Working Knowledge interview with Malcon Salter triggered a few thoughts about hyperconnectivity, emergence, and risk.

Much of the coverage of Enron has focused, with reason, on the ethical lapses of Enron's leaders. However, a contributing factor seems to be the ability of "financial engineers" to create sophisticated structures faster than the market could create tools to effectively evaluate and govern those structures. More recently, the securitization of debt seems to have catalyzed a similarly unstable structure in the mortgage markets.

All of which seems reminiscent of the structural governance challenges that are emerging from Web/Enterprise 2.0. As with Enron, there are significant opportunities to create value via disintermediation. However, there are also significant risks that emerge when the complexity of information processing structures outstrips our ability to understand and govern those structures.