More Twitter...

Actually, you can follow all three of us -- Jack, June and Valdis -- on Twitter!

Twitter is a micro-blogging platform -- one and two sentence posts -- which allows you to quickly share ideas and discoveries on the WWW.

Twitter's original idea was that people post answers to "What are you doing?" I like to answer the questions "What are you interested in?" and "What are you paying attention to?" I tend to follow people that answer similar interest/attention questions in their tweets [posts to Twitter].

Here is a quick intro to Twitter and some musings about network mapping of Twitter data. The graphic below shows part of my Twitter graph in the first month of use -- who follows whom.

Twitter

I'm exploring Twitteras a Network Weaver tool for building relationships. The Twitterers I most admire offer a combination of personal observations with "caught in the moment" flashes of insight and links to cool sites. If you Twitter, and want to get Twittered when I post something new on the blog, check me out at juneholley.

Panarchy

The Plexus Institute has a self-organized group that is reading the book Panarchy edited by Lance Gunderson and C.S.Holling.

You can dowload a chapter of their book at the Resilience Alliance web site or purchase the book and join us at our next call on September 10th at 11 AM Eastern. Check the Plexus website for call-in number.

The book is about ecosystems and humans, but I found it incredibly provocative about transformation in any sphere. One of the most interesting new ideas I gained was the concept of nested cycles--that some aspects of social systems work on very short timeframes--say a microprocess in a meeting--and some things work on very long timeframes--for example, deep structures that program how we see the world. They point out that small changes or shifts at one scale can trigger rapid shifts in other scales.

This made me think that an effective Network Weaver strategy could be to have people practice listening to another person quite different from themselves followed by a quick reflection on their internal reaction. Could this move them from a reactive stance to one of much-increased awareness? Done well and repeated several times, could such quick cycling activity trigger an important shift in deep structures from a we/they rigidity to an appreciation of networked diversity as the provoker of breakthroughs?

Nice Big N Network Paper

Nice new site for networking efforts in Maine. Includes case studies of several networks--what I call big "N" networks to emphasize that they are intentional and at least somewhat formally organized and to differentiate them from small "n" networks which is the lens that looks at all relationships among people, not just those in the formal network.

Of course, we need to be very aware of both lens when we are interested in transformation. And Network Weavers are important in any case. I'd love to see a Community of Practice around network enhancement. Anyone have any ideas about how we could get this going?

Weaving the Electric Grid

It is amazing how many of our current problems come down to the realization that it's the network, the connectivity, that matters. In most situations we know how to fix and enhance the nodes in the network. The links, and their patterns and structure, are the hard problem. How do you weave a better network, regardless of what is being distributed -- knowledge or electricity?

We are making progress in alternative energy production, but we still fail at energy distribution. Windmills and solar energy collectors have made great progress -- we just can't get the energy from where the wind blows and the sun shines to where the great population centers are. To do that requires a well-designed power distribution grid. Many critics of the current grid describe it as "third world" in design, quality and capability. Today's New York Times describes the power distribution problem well.



Above is a network map of a portion of the US electric grid. Life is great if you live in one of the densely connected clusters using electricity generated nearby. Things start to get real complicated if energy needs to transferred from one cluster to another cluster in grid. Distance destroys. Electricity does not flow like information or water or oil. It is not easy to direct, and much electricity is lost to heat when transferred over long distances. On the internet, 100 packets sent from Cleveland all arrive in New York wholly intact -- not so with a 100 MW of electricity generated in Cleveland and sold to NY. Even more electricity would be lost going to Miami, and forget about LA. It makes no sense to transfer electricity made in Cleveland to Los Angeles -- most of it would be lost during the trip.

Not only does physics get in the way, so do local interests. Then you have another power problem -- that of political power. Doing a social network analysis of the electric grid quickly points out key nodes and links that are highly between transfer points on the grid. They become gatekeepers/bottlenecks and either extract a toll for the transfer, or refuse transfer and require the buyer and seller to find a longer route to get from point of generation to point of consumption. And remember -- distance destroys.

Energy independence will take a lot more than just new technology at the point of generation. It will take the design of a much smarter network of distribution. On the other hand, just like we are learning about food production/distribution -- produce & buy local -- we may need to apply that rule to electrcity also.

Weaving Journalists

The New York Times publishes an interesting story about "investigative journalists for hire". Via the concept of crowdfunding, a community that wants something investigated, will raise money from many local citizens, each contributing a small amount. This will allow journalists to self-organize around stories that are both interesting and have local grass-roots support.

Cleveland and NE Ohio have a big corruption story brewing, but the local paper -- The Plain Dealer -- is in the middle of offering hundreds of buyouts to reporters and staff. The PD has done a good job of reporting the beginning of the investigation -- rumor had it that 22 reporters were on the case -- but will probably have to reduce their focus as they downsize.

A local grass-roots effort -- Map the Mess -- has sprung up to gather public information about the Cuyahoga County Corruption Scandal. They are a group of local citizens that have day jobs and families that prevent them from fully diving into this intricate story. The effort appears to need some experienced investigative journalists willing to take the reigns and lead. Maybe a triangle needs to be closed between the local MtM folks and the Spot Us community in the NYT article?

Below is one of the early maps of the mess using the "indirect quid pro quo" concept. This map was published by one of the volunteer journalists on the MtM project. The red arrows show "flow of benefit". The diagram uses data taken directly from this Plain Dealer article.

Stay tuned

Stay tuned for our 9 months of workshops on network weaving, sponsored by E4S.

Human Rights Network Mapping

Here is an amazing report on the applications of network mapping, analysis and weaving to assist and facilitate human rights work. It is basically an introductory textbook for all types of applied network analysis, filled with examples and cases. This report is perfect for the beginning practitioner, and researchers/academics not trained in mathematical sociology.

A superb job by Skye Bender-deMoll. The research was sponsored by AAAS -- American Association for the Advancement of Science.

A Great Network Weaver

In going through some my old articles, I ran across a tribute to my late friend and colleague, Bob Stambaugh.

He was a network weaver in the corporate world -- a place where "spanning structural holes" is a more common strategy than "closing triangles". Here is the IHRIM Journal article about Bob and his network weaving in the field of Human Resource Information Technology[HRIT].

In the article, notice the difference between the first network map [Figure 1] and the last one [there is a typo, the last map should be Figure 4]. The first map shows Bob's colleagues[blue nodes] in the field of HRIT. The last map shows who Bob introduced to whom -- the triangles he closed amongst his colleagues.

The illustration below is one of the network triangles he closed. Initially I introduced Bob to Gerry around an SNA project, and then Bob introduced Gerry to Karen to write an article for the IHRIM Journal.

Networks are built on productive introductions. Who have you introduced lately?

A new blog: T N T

In addition to my blogging here, I am starting a new blog which will expand beyond "network weaving".

The new blog is named: TNT — The Network Thinker...

TNT is focused on "exploding" old concepts and thinking about economies, organizations, communities and groups.

We will focus on new forms of connectivity and emergence in organizational, community, and social networks and how these new structures lead to resilience, adaptability, agility, and innovation.

I invite everyone to join me on TNT and share your views with what is presented. I hope to see the Comments field host many conversations. All opinions welcome! [No Flames, No Spam]

I have removed posts from this blog that did not focus on Network Weaving and moved them over to TNT. Many of my posts remain here and I will continue to post here under the topics of network weaving, economic development, and community building.

Network Maps

You don't need network mapping software to get groups started with Social Network Analysis. All you need is some large chart paper, a few markers and simple instructions. Make sure that the group has a focus for the network--perhaps some project that they are or want to work on. Here are some sample instructions:

First, draw some circle to represent the members of your group. Next add people that you are already working with on a regular basis on this project and draw lines from you to them. If any of them work together, draw lines to connect them. Then add those people you draw on occasionally. Finally, add people you aren't working with now but would like to to increase the success of your project.

Then have the groups explain their maps to the others. It's amazing the insights they unearth! And how quickly they start thinking more explicitly about relationships in their work.

The pictures above show some of the maps that the groups from the Caribbean UN gathering drew. I'm always amazed at the uniqueness of each map.

Caribbean Jewels

Last week I was in Barbados, one of the many island jewels scatted throughout the azure waters of the Caribbean. The United Nations has hired me to network a group of innovative leaders from 10 different countries. Soon after the participants arrived, we had them complete a form asking about their networks. Not surprisingly, we found that few of the attendees knew anyone else there. Time for some serious Network Weaving!

Several times throughout the workshop, we did a simple exercise called Speed Networking. Each individual shared their answers to questions such as "What excites you about learning about networks?" and "What are your dreams for networking people in the Caribbean Region?" with one other person, then took a turn listening to their partner. This way, people built a connection with 4 other people at the workshop so that they could comfortably go up to them during a break and start a conversation.

The best way that I've found to ensure that networks continue after meetings end is to get people working on a concrete project with others who share a common passion. Drawing on Jack's work, I had everyone in the room identify some issue area that they felt could make a huge difference for the region and that they were willing to work on over the coming year. Once the list of 15 dreams was complete, we could see that the opportunities could be grouped into 4 topic areas. These 4 groups then set to work mapping the network they would need to weave if they were to be successful in making things happen and identifying very specific Opportunity Spaces. Over the next two days, each group charted explicit network building steps they would take when they returned home. Now, one week after the session has ended, discussions are continuing online.

June Holley

Social Network Justice

One of the pleasures of selling social network analysis software and services is seeing what clients do with the new knowledge and tools we provide to them.

Several years ago I started working with an economic justice organization in a major U.S. city. Their focus is on tenant's rights and eliminating slum housing conditions. They had been working with their city attorney gathering information on a group of slumlords that owned apartment buildings that had a long list of continuously unresolved violations that were affecting the health of the tenants and their children.

They wanted a new way to analyze and visualize their data. Since the slumlords were keeping their activities covert, it made sense to uncloak their network using the data my client had gathered along with other available public data. Instead of mapping jihadi terrorists, the economic justice organization would be mapping economic terrorists.

Shared vision & values in networks

One of the more interesting questions I get about social networks is the question of whether we find networks where everyone shares common vision or values.

This does happen in networks that are also communities where people naturally share vision and values. In the many networks that are not also communities, there can be as many versions of vision and values as people in the networks, even in dense networks where many net-members are regularly trading in ideas, influence, and assets.

The observation points to the reality that a network can thrive without common threads throughout the network. It can be a whole and dynamic fabric connected by transactions rather than shared dreams and priorities. Neighborhoods are networks in this way. They are for most people communities of shared place and as such networks where isolation, fragmentation, and cliques are characteristic of the networks.

As with religious communities and corporations, the appearance of shared vision and values don't necessarily guarantee network density, agility, or thivancy.

Revisiting core distinctions

I continue to be amazed at the common confusion of network building with networking. The difference is a significant one. I netbuilding, our intention is to build the community. It is the intention of leader. Networking is the intention to build one's own property.

At the end of the day, networks thrive on both intentions because both foster quality connections and ultimately lead to the kinds of densities and reaching that builds networks and communities.

Accidental conversations

Valdis' brilliant reminders here about the capacity for resilience through net diversity remind me of a point I made in "Accidental Conversations" a few years ago, that we need to practice diversity in our conversations as well.

This is the practice of sparking and nurturing tangents and lateral inquiries in conversations. Lateral inquiries are questions that take the conversation in new directions. Some of the best are questions like who you've seen lately, what you've been reading or listening to lately, what you've seen on Ted.com or YouTube lately, what you've been up to lately.

These have the potential for a whole vibrant ecology of new discoveries and connections that we could never possibly anticipate, predict, or plan.

Those close by, form a Tie

Birds of a feather flock together... so do entrepreneurs.

Ed Morrison found some interesting research that examines the dense clustering of successful economic neighborhoods/clusters. This research is similar to that of Thomas Allen @ MIT, who studied how engineers and scientists worked, and from that came the Allen Curve, which shows the correlation between distance and frequency of communication in organizations. Both sets of research support what I have observed in social network analysis projects: those close by, form a tie -- and as a result get things done. In the age of the Internet, distance still matters!

From Washington University in St. Louis, News & Information:

"High-tech firms locating close to each other benefit from the proximity," says Barak S. Aharonson, visiting assistant professor of organization and strategy at the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis. "The potential for frequent face-to-face interaction, serendipitous encounters and easy scrutiny are facilitated by being near firms that are working on similar things and are open to sharing information."

Coffee shop encounters could lead to new business ideas. These "knowledge spillovers" happen more frequently the closer firms are to each other, and dissipate as the distance between companies grows. In fact, Aharonson said, the benefits of agglomeration are strongest within 500 meters (about 0.31 miles) and fade quickly over distances.

"Eventually they are all going to meet in the nearby coffee shop. The basis of agglomerations and the benefit for high tech firms is the flow of knowledge," Aharonson said. "At this point high tech knowledge is almost a public commodity. You can protect it, however through interactions with people — especially those outside the company — it disseminates rapidly. Proximity facilitates face to face interaction and increases the likelihood for knowledge spillovers. These knowledge spillovers enhance the potential creativity of the scientists. Increased creativity leads to new ideas, new products and new businesses. Hence, closely located firms are more likely to benefit from such knowledge spillovers than isolated firms."

Here is the full paper on Knowledge Spillovers.

Via BrewedFreshDaily.

Look what's selling

In today's NY Times, NYU's graduate program's new ad headline/tagline: "I'm earning my Master's, and joining a powerful professional network"

Imagine that! Know-who has finally caught up with know-what and know-how as a differentiating competency in the halls of ivy.

The art of NetAwareness

I am continuously innovating in the development of questions that can evoke netawareness (awareness of your own networks) without necessarily drawing visual maps. These questions are useful as steps before or after mapping, addressing the 3 kinds of value in networks - asset, positional, and generative value.

How many networks are you a part of these days?
In which are you more at the core and which more on the periphery?
Are these positions by choice?
What do you consider the more valuable tangible and intangible assets of these networks?
How many steps do you know or think you are from these assets?
What do you think are the more valuable assets you bring to your networks?
How many people know about these assets?
How many people do you think would describe you as a valued collaborator?
What if anything could position you more as a valued collaborator?
Who in your networks might benefit from your introducing them to each other?
Who would you benefit from being introduced to & who could make these introductions?

More on Positional Value

I think Jack is bringing up a really key point when he discusses positional value! A Network Weaver needs to be aware of where he or she is in their network(s). I often have individuals or groups of people from an organization or project take a large piece of paper and start drawing their network. In addition to including all the people they work with, they need to identify the connections between those individuals. They also need to include all of their friends' friends--people their friends have talked about but who the mapper does not really know.

All of this mapping helps people think about their position in the network. When someone comes to them with a dream, are they able to connect that individual to people who have the resources and ideas that will enable that person to turn the dream into reality?

Of course, a much more accurate and complete picture can be obtained by surveying the network and mapping the results, then looking at your individual scores for a range of metrics. But either way, you can start to improve your network position so that you can be a better Network Weaver.

For example, I've been trying to help a wonderful energetic candidate for mayor in our small town access information about what other small towns are doing to support Smart Growth--helping local businesses flourish and encouraging effective approaches to energy conservation. In my head, I started drawing a network map of my network that might provide some help in this arena. I realized that if I was going to be a true Network Weaver for him, I had to spruce up my Smart Growth network! I started calling up some people I had worked with years ago in economic development and quizzed them about their network. As I add these new folks to my network, I'm able to introduce the candidate to some truly effective Smart Growth wizards all around the country.

Network Weaver Checklist

Early on in this blog, I offered a list of characteristcs of network weavers. This list has now been expanded into the Network Weaver Checklist, located on my webpage.

The characteristics described in the checklist go far beyond the art of connecting people to each other, important as that is. For example, one good friend of mine always sees opportunities where others would see problems. If we get caught in a traffic jam, he notes that it gives us more time to talk or to notice the beauty around us! This quality, which we call Opportunity Seeking, is critical to network weaver success. By helping us shift our attention from what's wrong to a sense of possibilities, the network weaver is putting us on the path to effective self-organizing. We start thinking about what we can do and who we can work with to make things happen.

3 Kinds of Value in Networks

In my work with social network development, we're talking about 3 kinds of value people bring to their networks, that shape the quality of their connections.

Asset value is talent and resources. Positional value is awareness of the network and access to assets. Generative value is the ability and willingness to engage strengths in trust building and collaboration. Strong networks not only have people who bring each of these kinds of value, they have people who bring 2 or 3 kinds of value.

What we refer to as "network weavers" are often people with positional and generative value, and sometimes asset value although asset value is not a requirement for network weavers.

Generative value is the most important of all 3 because it drives the kind of inclusion and connectivity that increases a network's net (pardon the pun) asset and positional value. When the quality of connections deepens, the strength of the network expands.

The good news is that we now know exactly how to help people and networks develop their capacities for generative value.

Reframing Obesity Through Network Weaving

In his July 25th post, Valdis mentioned the social network mapping of obesity networks in The New England Journal of Medicine paper by Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler.

One of the most intriguing observations in the paper is that it was not seeing obeisty-related behavior shifts in their friendship networks that correlated with the spread of obesity, but shifts in norms! An infuential person in the friendship network started reframing the groups' attitude about obesity and related topics (eating habits, etc) and this created a dynamic of such power that it's impact shot out 3 steps (to friends of friends of friends).

This has incredible implications for obesity reduction efforts. Working with a network of local organizations, researchers, and foundations, can we identify some key individuals in a set of friendship networks that are ready to change, and help them form a group that would consciously help their networks reframe obesity? These key individuals would be network weavers, helping to build healthier networks.

I think the work of the Frameworks Institute could be very helpful. This group identifies current frameworks and then helps groups create new frameworks that enable individuals to move from those existing frameworks to new, more healthy ones.

Baboon sustainability

"So important are these social skills that it is females with the best social networks, not those most senior in the hierarchy, who leave the most offspring."

From today's Science section in the NY Times

What do you see?

This is a symbolic progression of generative relationships in part of a network. I like to use it to sharpen people's sense making about networks as they grow.

The etiquette of introductions

There is an etiquette to connecting with people we don't know (people in our 2nd and 3rd circles). In conversation with June and Valdis, I find out they know all kinds of people who are potentially interesting or important to me. I don't know how I fit into the world of these relationships they have built trust equity with.

It becomes a matter of courtesy, and core to our trust together, to let them know my intentions to connect with people in their close circles who they have revealed to me. They reveal their cherished connections because they trust that I will act in ways that honor their relationships and ours.

The best scenario is that they make the introductions they feel comfortable making. Of course, this can't apply when I have an accidental conversation with one of their close circle people, only realizing later that we have June's or Valdis' mutual trust in common.

In so-called "social network websites" where I can view someone's "736 closest friends" and start instantly connecting with/spamming them, I am violating introduction etiquette and risking the integrity and continuity of trust in all of the relationships involved.

Every introduction is an act of trust and trustworthiness. If I introduce you to one of my trusted friends or colleagues, it is in trust, that I am making a trustworthy introduction relative to the trust equity in our relationship.

Women leaders

Breakfast conversation today with two amazing women who are innovating in building and connecting intentional communities in Africa and here in the states. I’m helping them use social network science to do this work. We were talking about their experience of being outcasts as leaders in traditional religious communities when male hierarchies dominate.

It raises the question of when are we going to start realizing the legitimacy of women as leaders? When will be start to understand that authentic leadership is the fusion of divine feminine and divine masculine energies? When we become conscious about leadership, we will no longer make gender generalizations about leadership. On that day, women will be embraced for their creativity and men for their sensitivity. On that day, we will finally understand that leadership is a relationship, not a role.

Network Maps In Practice

You may have seen the recent stories in the New York Times that described the wonderful successes of the Pittsburgh Veterans Administration in decreasing the prevalence of the penicillin resistant staph infection (MRSA) that has been responsible for the deaths of perhaps 100,000 patients nationwide. What the story didn’t describe is that much of the lower rates were due to a strategy called Positive Deviance that encourages staff to work across roles to generate dozens of small actions that together bring about reduced rates. Housekeeping staff, in particular, began working with nursing staff on new cleaning strategies, innovative ways to deal with potentially contaminated gowns, etc

Working for Plexus Institute, I recently completed a project mapping and analyzing 4 units in the VAPHS and comparing the network metrics for each unit with the MRSA transmission rates. Read the full report here. We collected surveys from MRSA and nursing staff, who answered a set of questions: “Who did you work with on MRSA prevention strategies prior to the beginning of this Positive Deviance MRSA initiative? Who are you working with now? Who would you like to work with on MRSA prevention projects in the coming year?”

The results were fascinating! The unit with the lowest transmission rate had a network pattern distinctly different from the unit with a high transmission rates. The least successful unit (see the red nodes in the map above) was centralized and isolated. Individuals in the most successful unit (see the greeen nodes in the map), in contrast, were more evenly connected to each other and well-connected to a wide range of outside resources. Nursing was collaborating with the housekeeping staff, ward clerks and even patients in their efforts. Just imagine how the quality of health care could improve if we were able to spark this same innovative and collaborative environment in all hospital settings!

We are hoping to implement network mapping in several other hospitals, mapping at the start of the MRSA prevention project and using the results to move the hospital much more quickly to the kind of Smart Network that encourages effective innovation.

Conscious Becoming, excerpt

72

Look at the history of any culture or nation,
and find that whole groups and communities
can be collectively conscious or unaware.

And it only takes a small group
of conscious people to
transform collective unawareness.
It’s happened before,
it will happen again and again.

With no representatives or voting,
thousands of small,
individual and collective acts
of conscious people with faith in their gifts
give shape to a world
worthy of everyone’s trust and respect.

When people are conscious,
without imposed rules or consensus,
they know how to create beauty together.

I'm back

This is my prodigal return to the NetWeaving blog, post promise to Valdis and June in our agreement to step up our engagement here. The only excuse for my absence that I like is my being otherwise pre, and post, occupied with my 6th book that is now launched (ConsciousBecoming.com) and has already won great fanhood from Valdis and my close friends whose unconditional love makes it impossible to know if they really like it, or they're just about the love.

So back to the matter at hand. My social network focus has been and will continue to be on the quality of connections in networks. Valdis and June are genius at the questions of who's now connected and about what and who could and should be connected and about what.

My interest in client projects is all about building the right kind of trust, abundance perspective, and strengths engagement that allows high quality connections. It's actually the embryonic focus that sparked my consulting and coaching career 30 years ago when I was doing my thesis research on the phenomenology of conversations in interpersonal systems. So my place in the June-Valdis lineup is third in the batting order. Once people are connected to the right people for the right purposes, I help them get and stay smarter together - which is the natural byproduct of trust, abundance perspective, and the mutual engagement of strengths. In the civic space and organizations, these are competencies to be developed.

Feels good to be back. More later. Promise.

A lost link...

Steve "Habib" Rose
Nov. 12, 1957 - Sept. 26, 2007

Habib, our friend and colleague, passed away yesterday.

He was the biggest fan of this blog, a blogger himself, and often commented on our posts. He worked with June on several projects and was one of our most excited and motivated students of network mapping. He was a true network weaver, and we will miss him in many ways.

Intersections

Innovation happens at the intersection... of two or more different, yet similar, groups.

Where...

• one technology meets another
  
• one discipline meets another
  
• one department meets another
  
• one network meets another
  
• one neighborhood meets another
  
• the forest meets the meadow
  
• the ocean meets the shore.
  

The intersection of Art and Technology will be highlighted at Cleveland's Ingenuity Festival next week. Art, dance, music, theater and technology remixed through a long weekend: July 19th - 22nd.

I was first introduced to the intersection of art and technology many years ago when a client told me, after a long examination of a social network map of his organization, that my network diagrams reminded him of Jackson Pollock paintings! I took that as a compliment, and the art/tech seed was planted for me. Hmmm... I thought... analytic data visualizations as art... could be!

As a prelude to the Ingenuity Festival, Cleveland State University is holding a public forum on Creativity and Technology. Come hear more about Innovation at the Intersections!

UPDATE: For a more detailed examination of Innovation at the Intersections come hear Ed Morrison and Valdis Krebs at the Synergy Speaker's Forum, Saturday, July 21st @ Noon during the Ingenuity Festival.

Companion Planting

Attended the Defrag conference at Lorain County Community College [LCCC] these past two days. What a wonderful facility LCCC has!

Just like the last Defrag, I had an ah-ha moment at this one. This moment came from one of the other attendees -- Soren H. We were discussing connections in regional economies after my presentation. He said, "I think what we need is something akin to 'companion planting', after all isn't an economy a lot like an ecosystem?" Economy = Ecosystem? Sure! "But what is companion planting?" I inquired. He explained that it is a concept from organic gardening -- plants can benefit from having certain other plants close by in the garden. You can create the right mix to benefit the whole garden.

Of course! An economy that has the right mix of connected talent will work in the same way. Each benefits from having the other nearby resulting in creative combinations and win-win scenarios while the garden/economy benefits the most from the combinations and connections.

Which combinationations and connections are best for your regional economy?

Network Weavers in Action

The most exciting part of my consulting this last year has been realizing how many "natural" network weavers are already at work in communities and organizations. Listening to their stories, I'm discovering on a much deeper level what it means to be a network weaver.

For example, Jon Lloyd was trying to tackle MRSA, the deadly resistent staph infection that has been spreading through hospital systems. As a type of network weaver we call an Innovation Seeker, Jon went looking beyond the usual sources for insights that would help hospitals in Western Pennsylvania deal with MRSA. He found a Fast Company article that told about the Sternin's, a couple that had developed a strategy called Postitive Deviance in their efforts to end starvation among children in Vietnam. It helps organizations identify what's working and then enables people to self-organize to experiment and spread successes. He also pulled in staff of Plexus Institute, which is helping people apply complexity theory to solve intractable problems.

Quite a leap from MRSA to Vietnam and complexity science--but that's what Innovation Seekers do: they see connections and patterns in unlikely places. The application of Positive Deviance in this new setting has dramatically lowered MRSA rates in the Pittsburgh Veterans Administration Hospital System in just over a year. In addition, it's unleashing the creativity of housekeeping staff and patients, who are coming up with many of the most powerful solutions!

For more on the Pittsburgh experiments, see the latest issue of Emerging at Plexus Institute's site.

Speaking of trust

Thought leader, entrepreneur and management academic, Karen Stephenson, talks about the “quantum theory of trust” in organizations, which reflects that the collective cognitive abilities of organizations depends on the presence of trust in its networks of relationships.

As she says, “People have at their very fingertips, at the tips of their brains, tremendous amounts of tacit knowledge, which are not captured in our computer systems or on paper. Trust is the utility through which this knowledge flows.”

Or one might say, people who don’t share trust are less intelligent together; people who share trust are smarter together.

Earned and unearned trust

When we're helping build trust in network relationships, we need to work from two distinctions: earned and unearned trust.

Unearned trust has to do with like and likeness. We naturally trust people like us and people we like. Closing triangles in ways that builds trust means helping people quickly find reasons to like each other and find ways in which they are already similar - in tastes, likes and dislikes, passions, perspectives, agendas, experience, values, and so on.

Earned trust has to do with making and keeping promises. Help people make and keep promises early on in order to help earned trust equity build.

After all, trust is the basis of speed and creativity.

The happiness/unhappiness continuum

Valdis and I have been having this conversation about the quality of relational transactions in networks. We're thinking outside the usual box of the continuum from win-win to lose-lose. In any set of transactions, there are 6 possible outcomes.

A. Happy-Happy: both of us are happy with the outcomes
B. Happy-Tolerably unhappy: one of us is happy while the other is unhappy at acceptable levels
C. Tolerably unhappy-Tolerably unhappy: both of us unhappy at acceptable levels
D. Happy-Intolerably unhappy: one of us is happy while the other is happy at unacceptable levels
E. Tolerably unhappy-Intolerably unhappy: one of us unhappy at acceptable levels while the other is unhappy at unacceptable levels
F. Intolerably unhappy-Intolerable unhappy: both of us are unhappy at unacceptable levels

Obviously, A is the best outcome. B and C are OK in the short run or occasionally but in the long run cannot support the relationship. D, E, and F are to be avoided because they are unsustainable in the short and long run.

In the New Year, I resolve to...

... weave better networks... for myself and others.

But, be careful whose advice you follow! Here are two contrasting pieces of advice emanating from Chicago.

First, Betsy Hart of the Chicago Sun Times relates her experience...

It used to make me crazy when people would invite my then-husband and me over to dinner, only to discover that another couple we'd never met had been included because the hosts thought we would ''just love these folks.''

Whether we did or not, we'd have to spend the whole night making small talk and asking, ''So, how old are your kids?'' I was at a stage in life where I didn't want to learn how old someone's kids were. I just wanted to relax with people I already knew.

Just being with people you know is easy and safe -- no effort, nor risk required. But it gets you a dull network -- everyone knows everyone else, everyone agrees with everyone else, and everyone hears what is going on at the same time. This is OK for friendship networks, but not good for business networks, nor for those of us who like a little variety in our friends and opportunities in our networks.

Ron Burt, Professor of Sociology and Strategy at the University of Chicago, is one of the top experts on social capital in the world. His advice is different. He suggests we focus on those who are different, rather than on those we are already connected to.

They have broader access to information because of their diverse contacts. That means they are more often aware of new opportunities, and aware earlier than their peers.

Below is a diagram from Ron's work that shows the difference in the two types of networks. James has chosen the easy redundant strategy, while Robert has chosen the more difficult diverse contacts strategy. As Ron goes on to explain in this short article [PDF], it is Robert who has the advantage because of his network structure. Robert weaves a better network from the same starting point as James -- he is a network entrepreneur.


Enjoy a productive New Year in your entrepreneurial network!

UPDATE: Here is an excellent article on building business networks from the Harvard Business Review [PDF]. Though this article focuses on corporate managers, the advice is useful for those working in the not-for-profit sector and for community builders. Take note of their advice on the network change required when moving from being a manager to being a leader.

Notice how the HBR avice in building a strategic network meshes with Burt's advice on building a diverse network.

Connections, Cognition and Ca$h

Good things are happening in the Cuyahoga Valley.

People and organizations are connecting, and money is pouring in. Connections, Cognition, and Cash, the necessary base for a good Innovation Soup, are being cooked in a pot that has been empty too long.

A standing room only crowd [eager for good news?] was at the press conference where the Third Frontier investments in the area were announced. My first alma mater, Cleveland State University, partnered with 32 others for their winning grant on sensor systems -- weave that network! Other Cuyahoga Valley winners included the University of Akron, Swagelok, GrafTech, Kent Displays, Cleveland Clinic [20 collaborators!], Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals.

I am working with Currere and the Cuyahoga Valley Initiaive to map the networks of collaborative activity in the valley. After doing this type of work all around the world, it is nice to be working in my own backyard! If you work in the Cuyahoga Valley, or collaborate with those that do, please fill out our network survey.

Ask any chef, and s/he will tell you that a good soup needs a good base. An economic chef will tell you that the prime ingredients for a good economic soup includes connecting smart people and giving them funds and freedom to develop their ideas -- and then letting the mixture self-organize under the right conditions.

Mmmm... good!

defrag?

Today I attended a conference on digital media at the Cleveland Institute of Art -- affectionately called "CIA" on the North Shore. A great group of people showed up.

But I could not "get" the title of the conference -- defrag??? It is something I used to do to my Windows computers when they would slow down after several months of use. So I looked up "defrag" on the web...

A process whereby parts of data files on all segments of a computer hard disk are taken from their fragmented state (with parts of files spread all over the disk), and grouped together in complete-file segments. This makes it quicker for applications to find the files they need and frees up disk space, making the computer run more efficiently.

Key phrases: "parts spread all over", "grouped together", "make it quicker to find", "run more efficiently"

Oh, I get it now... "defrag" is the geek's way of saying "networkweaving". Defragging and networkweaving accomplish the same goal -- they take a complex distribution of information and knowledge and re-organize it for more efficient processing. Of course in defragging human systems we are not just looking for efficiency alone, but also discovery, innovation and growth.

Maybe our new elevator spiel should be: "We defrag organizations and communities". What do you think?

The power of the network

Riffing of our Plexus Institute conference call yesterday: when we want to create a broader set of connections around any project we have on our plate, we need to help people get clear on our goals, short and long term. The clearer they are on our goals, the easier it is to connect us to people and resources we cannot predict or anticipate.

This is the power of knowing and knitting any network: access to resources we cannot predict or anticipate.

Innovation

June and I chatted this morning about the centrality of innovation in our network weaving work. Everyone we work with is after one or both kinds of change: scaling what you're already doing, and doing something new (innovation).

Network weaving is particularly powerful with innovation because we're connecting people with the kind of diversity that is always essential to the R&D of innovation. Diversity of ideas, perspectives, intentions, resources, access, and opportunities. The more we connect with people outside our personal (1st) circle, the diversity becomes more and more guaranteed.

Of course learning how to connect these people in collaboration toward innovation is a social technology that we will continue to offer in our workshops

WWW - World Wide Weaving

Local network weaving is great, but global network weaving is better!

I am blogging from Riga, Latvia, where this week I participated in some great meetings and some great introductions.

Above is a simple network map of the organizations involved. The links show who has collaborated with whom before this week. All of the organizations, except for orgnet.com, are from the EU -- most from Latvia. After having worked with a great group of new media artists @ RIXC and some brilliant mathematicians and computer guys @ SIS, I knew it was time for some introductions. All of the above organizations/groups were represented at the meeting in the Old Town section of Riga. One introduction led to another, and soon plans were being formulated for future projects, sharing technology, new conferences, teaching classes, and introductions to possible sources of finance.

The network below depicts the group after the week, with the green links revealing productive introductions that were made and are currently being pursued for collaboration and innovation.