Research Talk: Following the thread of information: Insights from conflict, firms, and innovation

Abstract
When we look at the natural world around us, we are surrounded by living processes that generate, manipulate, and use information. I will discuss three incipient lines of research that pull on this thread of information as a concept with the goal of eventually formalizing the problems in information-theoretic terms. First, I will talk about discovering the multiple scales of armed conflict. Second, I will discuss an old characterization of firms as "information processors," but one that still remains enigmatic because the use of information inside a firm has been largely unseen. Third, I will talk about a phenomenon that unifies dynamics of living systems, the dual processes of innovation and obsolescence.