Synchronized bursts of productivity and success in individual careers

Sumit Kumar Ram; Shyam Nandan; Sami Boulebnane; Didier Sornette

doi:10.1038/s41598-022-10837-1

Synchronized bursts of productivity and success in individual careers

Sci Rep. 2022 May 10;12(1):7637. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-10837-1.

Authors

Sumit Kumar Ram^{1

2}, Shyam Nandan^#³, Sami Boulebnane^#⁴, Didier Sornette^{5

6

7

8

9

10}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Management, Technology and Economics, ETH Zürich, Scheuchzerstrasse 7, 8092, Zurich, Switzerland. sram@ethz.ch.
² MIT Connection Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA. sram@ethz.ch.
³ Department of Earth Sciences, ETH Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland.
⁴ Department of Physics, ETH Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland.
⁵ Department of Management, Technology and Economics, ETH Zürich, Scheuchzerstrasse 7, 8092, Zurich, Switzerland. dsornette@ethz.ch.
⁶ Department of Earth Sciences, ETH Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland. dsornette@ethz.ch.
⁷ Department of Physics, ETH Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland. dsornette@ethz.ch.
⁸ Swiss Finance Institute c/o University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland. dsornette@ethz.ch.
⁹ Tokyo Tech World Research Hub Initiative, Institute of Innovative Research, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan. dsornette@ethz.ch.
¹⁰ Institute of Risk Analysis, Prediction and Management (Risks-X), Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), Shenzhen, 518055, China. dsornette@ethz.ch.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Notwithstanding a significant understanding of epidemic processes in biological, social, financial, and geophysical systems, little is known about contagion behavior in individual productivity and success. We introduce an epidemic model to study the contagion of scholarly productivity and YouTube success. Our analysis reveals the existence of synchronized bursts in individual productivity and success, which are likely mediated by sustained flows of information within the networks.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Efficiency*
Epidemics*