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The Law of Unintended e-Consequences

By Stanley P. Jaskiewicz
December 18, 2009

Everyone who has ever worked on a tech project, whether in e-commerce or general business, has probably seen situations in which an assumed solution creates a bigger mess than the original problem. The military even coined a now widely used term for this situation ' SNAFU ' with which many people are familiar, but maybe not of its origins or full meaning (see, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNAFU).

Scholars have created a more formal statement of the same law of human ' and machine ' nature: the law of unintended consequences. Best-selling author Stephen J. Dubner and economist Steven D. Levitt have discussed this behaviorial principle extensively in their books and New York Times columns (see, www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/magazine/20wwln-freak-t.html?_r=2&ref=magazine&oref=slogin, and www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/01/the-law-of-unin.html).

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