Posted by Internet at Every Where on 7:42 AM
I posted a tweet on this today and June suggested I elaborate, so here are some seminal ideas on 5 basic personalities that show up and engage in social networks.AddersPeople who are always introducing (adding) new people, new ideas, new questions, and new assets to the networkSubtractorsPeople who are always looking to take something (subtracting) from the network - they are the consumers, stealers, and energy-drainers in the networkDividersPeople who are always aligning people in opposition to others in the network; they keep the network divided into us-them divisions based on either-or thinkingMultipliersPeople who create rhizomic possibilities that can keep multiplying, virally, by virtue of their replicability and value to the networkIntegratorsPeople who create new fusions of possibilities,...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 10:23 AM
Inspired by my favorite Talking Heads song: "Once in a Lifetime". We often wonder "how did I get here?" when we look around and reflect on our personal networks. Where did all these connections come from? Did I do all this? Who helped weave my network? What can I do with these connections? Where can I add more?I will go through key growth stages of a network that evolved this past decade. Many of the connections have already resulted in creative collaborations. Other connections are just bearing fruit now. Networks are like that -- a new connection does not always bear instant fruit, sometimes the growing season for some links is very...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 10:51 AM
One of the most interesting developments in the social sciences is the new science of social networks. This is the growing body of knowledge and practice about how organizations, communities, regions, industries, markets and geopolitics behave as networks of collaboration, learning, and influence.One of the principles in social network science is that when people are better connected, they are more individually and collectively productive, cohesive, and resilient.From a social network perspective, every social problem is a symptom of fragmentation in networks. Everything we call a problem today is a manifestation of unengaged citizens, siloed...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 7:31 PM
First of a series of chats on leading edge ideas in regional economic development with Ed Morrison and Valdis Krebs. We look at how to find hidden opportunities in business lists. Valdis uses social network analysis and some simple data mining to derive the network of collaboration opportunities below from the list of 350 NE Ohio advanced energy companies above. How did he do it? Watch and listen to this 5 minute Screenr screencast!Next week's chat will focus on Ed's work around ditching organizational char...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 6:38 PM
Special thanks to Elgin Cultural Arts Commiss...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 6:26 PM
Special Thanks to Annie Heckman and Dan Godston for facilitating this eve...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 9:39 PM
Special Thanks for Irene P�rez for assistance with installation and documentation - and Angela Standford & John Mark Nielsen for making it happ...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 9:24 PM
Special Thanks to Annie Heckman and Dan Godston for facilitating this eve...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 4:21 PM
These are views from the rural economic development Summit June and I (Jack) facilitated last Friday. It was a great group and a fabulous time of learning and transformation. People did a great job of dreaming and translating dreams into small acts - cultural breakthroughs we expect to hear long term impacts fr...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 8:11 AM
Recently Valdis appeared on WCPN - 90.3 FM, the Cleveland NPR radio station, on "The Sound of Ideas" with Dan Moulthrop. The program was about searching for a job when you are over 50 years old. Listen to the MP3 here [I am in the last 15 minutes]. Here are more details to the network weaving process that the limited on-air time did not allow me to share.When is the best time to plant a tree?20 years ago.When is the next best time to plant a tree?Today!Chinese ProverbWhat is true for trees, is true for networks -- build your network before you need it!It is best to have been building and expanding your strategic personal network for all of...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 6:44 PM
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Posted by Internet at Every Where on 10:42 PM
Special Thanks to Secret School and Antena for facilitating the opportunity and Miguel Cortez for assistance and photographic documentati...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 7:30 PM
Special Thanks to Matthew Clowney for photographic documentati...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 9:22 AM
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 9:16 AM
key to understanding self-organizing is the concept of emergence. Here is a nice video (via Lisa Kimball) in two par...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 2:49 PM
I'm really finding BFI Book Group quite delightful. First, it's a good use of Ning, a free customizable social networking site, as a discussion forum. Might want to check it out to see how it works.In addition, the quality of the discussion of The Invention of Air (by Steven B Johnson) is great. There's a new thread on Systems Thinking and Change that is fascinating. Saul Kaplan, who organized the Book Group, says...systems level innovation is exactly what it is going to take to tackle the really important issues of our time including health care, education, and climate change.But to get systems level innovation we need theory. Steven Johnson...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 7:25 AM
Saul Kaplan has set up an online book club on innovation. The first book we are reading and discussing is Steven Johnson's "The Invention of Air," which describes the coffee house culture of England and the U.S. in the late 1700's. Here are some of my thoughts about these places that were so crucial to innovation in that era.Think about the coffee house - people flowing in and out with the frequent running into others and the chance to exchange and cross-fertilize one's latest spontaneous thinking, places for twosies to sit down and move the sparks that have been created into action, and groups coalescing around trending topics so larger stuff...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 2:48 PM
The biggest network divide -- the one I think makes philanthropy so much less effective than it could be -- is the divide between so-called DONORS and BENEFICIARIES. I want to suggest that these terms are a little whacky. I want to suggest that people who give money and people who have projects that need money need to rethink of themselves as a PEER NETWORK -- and that this small (but oh so difficult) step would instantly start a process of transformation.First of all, people are doing fabulous, creative stuff out in communities. They are experimenting, working unbelievably hard, scrambling for resources to keep going. Philanthropists could learn so much from them about what works, what makes a difference - but how do they get a true picture of what is going on, because non-profits feel they...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 5:00 AM
An example of a Viral Giving Network was provided in two earlier posts about the Oxfam Savings for ChangeProject and Keys to Transformation and Scale. Women in the Savings for Change Circles spread their successful strategy for collecting savings and then lending to circle members to many other groups of women in their villages, thus increasing the impact of the project more than ten-fold -- at very little additional cost. Viral Giving always includes training participants so that they can continue to spread the project. In Savings for Change, participants were given the framework of viral spreading ("You can spread this to other women in your village."), tools for spreading the project (a pictograph manual of how to run a savings circle), and basic skills and strategies to spread the project....
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 4:52 AM
Thanks to the good folks at I-Open, especially Betsey Merkel, I'm sharing a 20 minute video on Network Weaving. This could be the first of a series, a tutorial on Network Weaving concepts and skills.All I ask is that you provide some feedback: Is this useful? What about the length? What specific aspects of Network Weaving would you like to learn more abo...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 1:49 PM
In the next series of posts, I'll use examples to describe the 4 (maybe 5) sub-networks in a truly transformative philanthropy network. I'll offer a graphic that will show each part and then how they all fit together.Part 1: The Viral Giving NetworkPart 2: The Viral Donor Aggregation NetworkPart 3: The Direct Donor to Recipient NetworkPart 4: The Learning NetworksPart 5: The Engagement Across Divides NetworksYou will see as each is described, the words that we use start shifting, opening up new possibiliti...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 11:16 AM
In the 2 previous posts I've been talking about philanthropists as if they were synonymous with foundations. In this post I'd like to deconstruct and reconstruct the notions of who is a philanthropist.We have been blessed in this country (U.S.A.) to have many many foundations. However, these foundations, as was the case for businesses and government agencies as well, adopted organizational structures that were hierarchical and generally operated in isolation from other organizations. For the last decade, though, many entrepreneurial individuals and businesses have moved to an ecosystem model: they have vast relationships with other businesses of many types and sizes as well as with 'customers,' and they often operate through an ever-changing ensemble of of collaborative projects with others...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 10:24 AM
How can philanthropy assist in the formation of policy networks? I think the biggest mistake foundations make is that they often convene non-profits interested in a particular policy area and have them talk (often for months or even years), struggling to consense on a specific policy agenda which they then push forward as a group. For many intractable problems, though, this approach is premature, and often doesn't result in long term system change. Why not start with the most basic system change and create a different set of relationships among all of those who care about some major problem or possibility? How can development of a policy agenda engage policy makers and policy influentials (Institutes, individuals, and media that people look to to shape discussions in a particular policy...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 8:26 AM
My first suggestion to enhance philanthropy is for foundations or philanthropists to be trend and energy seekers. Rather than have lengthy planning/priority sessions, why not have the program staff (and board) call people they respect (and then some random names from the non-profit, grassroots community) and ask them what they think are the most exciting projects, directions, organizations and individuals working in communities? As a result of listening, the foundation will quickly find out where the energy is, so that they can support, enhance and scale that good energy.The first step in enhancing already emerging energy is to encourage and assist those energy centers to enhance their networks. I remember one very nice foundation that decided, after much internal study, on a focus for their...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 9:16 PM
Escape the snowy North and come learn something new in sunny San Diego!Valdis Krebs will be presenting a 1/2 day workshop on practical applications of social network analysis [SNA] at the upcoming Sunbelt Social Network Conference sponsored by INSNA -- International Network for Social Network Analysis. This workshop will be on the morning of March 11th at the Bahia Hotel @ Mission Beach in San Diego, California. The Sunbelt conference will run until Sunday, March 15th in the same Hotel.The hands-on workshop will feature a quick overview of social network analysis as applied to organizations and communities. You will get a chance to use social...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 1:41 PM
How can a foundation or charitable endeavor have the greatest impact? I think its through 4 basic strategies:1. Funding 2-step viral strategies for transformation2. Providing support for learning/policy communities among "grantees"3. Creating viral strategies to build an expanding donor community4. Enabling donor and grantee to engage directlyMore on each of these tomorrow! I'm not sure that any philanthropic effort currently employes all 4, but I'm counting on those of you who have implemented one or more to share your experience with ...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 10:05 AM
When we want to understand how small changes can be leveraged into transformation, Donella Meadows has a great list of 12 leverage points she compiled back in the seventies, but which is still so applicable today.The leverage point I most like is Number 3: The Power of Self-Organization.The most stunning thing living systems can do is to change themselves utterly by creating whole new structures and behaviors. In biological systems that power is called evolution. In human economies it's called technical advance or social revolution. In systems lingo it's called self-organization.Self-organization means changing any aspect of a system lower on...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 6:38 AM
I like to explain self-organizing as the capacity for any individual or individuals to identify something they would like to do to make a community better, find others who would enable that action to be a success, and access the resources needed to move to action. When many people are involved in numerous collaborative actions, and they share the successes and failures of those actions with others, the community can quickly become transformed and begin operating in new ways. This is called emergence.Our brains, our immune systems, termite castles, ecosystems are all self-organizing. This self-organization has enabled each of these systems to be wonderfully adaptable and effective - far beyond what any single cell or termite could accomplish on their own. Are we self-organized now? Well, when...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 6:25 AM
Most of the examples of self-organization that I find on the Internet are either personal or large-scale as in the Belarus flashmob example in a previous post.The missing level of self-organization that no one is talking about is the small stuff: small group collaborations, especially those that cross organizational boundari...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 5:23 AM
If you haven't read Here Comes Everybody, grab a copy and you will soon understand why everybody is talking about self-organizing these days.Clay Shirky, the author, is an engaging speaker with a long list of easy-to-digest videos on You Tube that I highly recommend. One of the stories he tells of the power of self-organization took place in Belarus in 2006. Not allowed to protest by the repressive regime, young people used mobile phones to gather large ice-cream eating flashmobs. As smiling ice cream eaters were dragged off to prison, their plight was broadcast all over the world, weakening the legitimacy of the ruling party. In a recent talk,...
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