Ken Thompson of Bioteams has a wonderful piece, "Why penguins have no commanding officer," that builds on his long exploration of teams in nature. In this one, he talks about the collective smarts of animal groups. There's no single leader; collectively, the group leads as each member knows some bit of the whole. Makes great sense to me - and jibes with our line about virtual teams and networks: "Leadership shifts depending on the task at hand," called "polycephalous leadership" by anthropologists Gerlach and Hine. See also Ken's post today, "Did ants invent the perfect mobile communications system?"
Ants interact using a system known as pheromones, involving sending 'chemical messages' to their community through smell and taste. It is also one of the oldest and most sophisticated forms of group communication on the planet with many features today's mobile and virtual teams would die for!
