Institutions articulate the relationship between the environment and its actors (Great men). Therefore, they should be our prime object of focus. We know at what should look, but how should we?

We will explain our approach through a forest fire analogy.

As a firefighter, we would like to predict the next forest fire. A spark can happen everywhere. Therefore, we should not focus on predicting its future location but analyse the relationship between trees (proximity...) and the environment (rivers, paths...) to predict how it will spread.

In a similar fashion, we should analyse the internal structure of institutions as well as their network. If we wanted to predict the fall of Indochina, we should not look at Ho Chi Minh and Pol Pot directly but Parisian universities and their links, for instance. Or we should not try to predict the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand but study the mesh of alliances.

We may also adapt this approach to individuals. We should not focus on opportunities as we cannot create them, but the conditions of opportunities. The best predictor for one's future is one's network. If you are a developer, you should not "try to find work" but be friend with, for instance, a CEO in another industry. Over a sufficiently long time, the "spark" will statistically happen and he will ask for your work.

A major corollary of this theory is the durability of cities, as the main networking platform. As Mr Samo Burja put it:

Great cities are social clubs first, everything else second.

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