The rise of railroads gave rise to the first org chart (2017) | Hacker News Reader

The rise of railroads gave rise to the first org chart (2017)

theorg.com

40 pointsplimp16 comments

Railroads also invented time zones. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_time

Prior to this each town observed its own time zone according to its solar noon. Railroads were the first means of transportation where keeping themselves in sync with each other and the local time was hard because trains traveled so quickly compared to previous forms of transport.

Its not possible to make an app that actually does this on Android due to permissions; but sometimes I day dream of an app that automatically shifts your phones time using the current GPS location. Not by which timezone you are in, but by when solar noon would be based on your exact location.

Sometimes I wonder about alternative worlds where railroads weren't possible (mountains? archipelago?) and local solar time remained the only thing.

Once long distance telegraphy and telephones are invented, you'd need to synchronize time again.

Maybe an archipelago of large independent cities, all too proud to switch to the local time of another? It's annoying for scheduling things that go between islands, but this is just a really small portion of what anyone is doing?

Now you're trying to define the society based on the result you want. The fact that you have to put up so many roadblocks to get the result you're looking for should tell you that synchronized time is inevitable.

Because now you have to have an archipelago of independent cities that don't even want to talk to other cities or expand or anything.

> Now you're trying to define the society based on the result you want.

Yes? The whole idea was to think about what sort of world you would need for local solar time to you have persisted.

You posited a world without rail. That was your initial proposition. That without rail, we wouldn't have needed to synchronize time.

But then we quickly realize that it wasn't rail per se that caused us to develop synchronized time, it was connectivity. So that's the thing you have to cut out. And that's a much bigger ask, because rail isn't the only way to connect things.

At some point you've redefined so much that the exercise is just kind of pointless navel gazing. I don't mind exploring "what ifs", but when it stops being "what if" and starts becoming pure fantasy, it had better come with a compelling narrative.

Because that's the answer to your apparently implied question: What would a world that never had to synchronize time look like? It would look completely alien.

It was also somewhat important to arrange for two trains not to be on the same section of track at the same time.

This was not always a successfully sustained state in early days. Or even today, though with far lower frequency.

Let's also not forget the alternative to the org chart, the Deming flow diagram: https://econoshift.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/19-Value-S...

Org charts often do not tell you anything about what an organisation does or how it's accomplished or who talks to who. The flow diagram does a much better job of actually... being meaningful?

Of course, the flow diagram will vary depending on which of the organisation's purposes one chooses to focus on... but so will the shape of the organisation that implements that purpose. The org chart just hides that, along with every other useful detail for actually understanding what's going on.

This is fascinating, but I can’t help thinking that the complexity of the Dutch East India Company would have had one first, even if it no longer exists today.

I bet the Romans thought they were the first… probably so did the Egyptians before them.

For those interested in the problems, and solutions, that increasingly complex businesses and operations provided and created, I can't recommend James Beniger, The Control Revolution (1984) highly enough.

https://www.worldcat.org/title/control-revolution-technologi...

https://archive.org/details/controlrevolutio0000unse

https://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=01E624258AF1B44F6649B02...

Side-question, prompted by the site where the article appears:

Does anyone have a suggestion for software for managing an org chart? If web-based, a requirement would be to be self-hosted.

I'm currently using data in simple text files, custom scripts generating graphviz input, and dot(1) output.

I thought much of biz tech came from US slavery..??

Which then went to railroads and other corporations...

Specifically org charts and things like that.

...ah I might be wrong about the org charts. Maybe. I do now remember the actuarial biz started down on some port street -- dealing with insurance and risk of transporting slaves.

Yeah, think the org charts were slavery too, but in the US.

The chart/map is beautifully done. I love the fact that he came up with an organizing principle and an accompanying visualization that not only showed the hierarchical levels, but also a grown Organisation that literally branched out with quite an organic feel to it.

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