Fingers of instability

There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
- Shakespeare

Have you ever wondered why some restaurant concepts flourish while others flounder? Have you done everything "right" and gotten a less than satisfactory result? Have you had a successful concept, opened your second one and stumbled badly? Well the problem is the finger of instability that permeates all elements of our existence. Actually the scientific term is self organizing criticality.

Mark Buchanan's "Ubiquity" describes the situation in this fashion;

"What counts in the critical state are not complex details but extremely simple underlying features of geometry that control how influences can propagate"

All one can do is their very best, everything else is whether or not their is enough underlying geometry to propagate the business.