Networks, Complexity, and Relatedness
Inquiry and learning into social networks, organizational network analysis, and the relationships among people and systems in complex organizations and networks.

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Tuesday, September 30, 2003

My Google Number

Judith Meskill's comment on the reading list prompted me to go to her site, where I discovered that she has made a direct connection with Valdis Krebs, which I apparently had a hand in.


Her note also reminded me to go read Valdis' latest article in HR.com, "What's your Google number?". I like to think about all these KM consultants trying to bring order to the emergent network of relatedness. The problem is that the data is static. Your Google number may not matter as much as its trajectory, and the rate at which it grows...

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Multiples of One Conference | November 7-8, 2003

The 2nd annual Multiples of One Conference will be in Cambridge, MA, USA November 9/10. I didn't attend the first, but then I didn't know Kate Ehrlich then.

"This year we ask the question: In a networked society what is the role of the individual? How can an individual-whether alone or with others-make meaningful contributions to the creation of new products and services, to the work environment, and to society? When faced with challenges and constraints do we fall back on what is comfortable or do we embrace change?


The conference will spark conversations around these topics in three thought provoking sessions: Nodes, Pods, and Pools. "

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Sunday, September 28, 2003



Cynefin

I just got back from an intense week in New York City, certifying as a Cynefin consultant. Very diverse set of people, with US-based consultants definitely in the minority. It is still "emerging" as a methodology, but many of the components of the methodology have become tacit and transferable.

On Thursday, David Snowden returned from Washington DC, and held up a copy of a center-fold advertisement by IBM in the Wall Street Journal for Tuesday, 9/23. Very laid back photo of David, headline: "What Bartleby the Scrivener can tell you about Bob the sales guy." Although there are still a number of IBM politics (which David relishes, I think), it is apparent that there are adherents in IBM of shifting at least some of the business consulting framework to thinking along the lines of complexity, narrative collection, and descriptive self-awareness.

David Gurteen has a good collection of Cynefin writings on his web site.

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Sunday, September 14, 2003



It's about relationships

I attended a talk by Dr. Daniel Blass at the Harvard Business School on Friday. A purely academic talk, one of those in which I find that things that I have taken for granted as generally true have not yet been proven. Colleagues from the Gennova Group got together to 'debrief' afterward and that was where the learning happened.

Some things we didn't know we knew: you need strong ties for exchanging tacit knowledge, and weak ties suffice for exchanging explicit knowledge (plain old communicating). There are really two ways to think about strong vs weak ties. The original definition had to do with redundancy. If you and I each have a ties with a number of the same people, then our tie is strong because there is redundancy.

The newer definition gets into the actual attributes of the tie, that is, if we have known and trusted each other for a long time and go to each other for advice, then we have a strong tie.

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Saturday, September 13, 2003



Update to my SNA Reading List

It's been a while since I looked at the my reading list on social networks, so I've done that today. I especially wanted to mention it because somehow it took me a while to find my way to Networks in the Knowledge Economy, a great collection of papers on social network theory and research. It's edited by Lisa Sasson, Rob Cross, and Andrew Parker. It includes the various articles that Rob and Andrew have published, along with some other classics, like Mark Granovetter's "Strength of Weak Ties." (I was looking all over the web for a copy of it!)

It's good to have these all in one place while I wait until February for the publication of Rob and Andrew's The Hidden Power of Social Networks: Understanding How Work Really Gets Done in Organizations

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Monday, September 08, 2003



SNA talks coming up

Sam Marshall, who practices SNA (and other forms of "intellectual capital punishment") at Unilever got in touch following my AOK tour. He's giving talks on his work at a couple of conferences coming up. Look for him if you have the chance. Dates and details are on the aforementioned blog site.

Yours truly is co-presenting this year at KMWorld with Eric Lesser, of IBM (Institute for Business Value). Eric, Rob Cross (who is also speaking), and I will hosting a "birds of a feather" on SNA at KMWorld. (That's in Santa Clara, October 14-16; all the SNA topics are on Wednesday, the 15th). Please come if you can!

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Sunday, September 07, 2003



The Gouge

My brother is a naval Commander, from whom I get occasional insights into how knowledge management plays out in the Navy. On a recent family web site posting, he used the word "gouge," as in the "latest gouge from Tim (our brother) in Iraq." Later that same day I was speaking with a client who used the word "gouge" as something that he wanted for a deliverable.


"Gouge, my brother says, "originated at the Naval Academy and then was shared with the rest of the fleet. Midshipmen would get the gouge for exams so that they didn't have to study all of the material. In the most cynical terms, getting the gouge is cheating. In the more pragmatic sense and day to day usage, it is the latest and greatest information, an executive summary, a way to try and work a bit more efficiently."

I have had a number of conversations with this client about the shift from contexted, written research papers to "briefings" (powerpoint slides, current being scourged by Edward Tufte).

Do gouges represent yet another step in the slide away from communications that contain context and meaning? Or are they a new form that provides information and context -- brevity without blabber?

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McGee's Musings

Very thought-provoking article in McGee's Musings: From Managing knowledge to coaching knowledge workers. He suggests that we need to approach the "KM" problem from the point of view of knowledge workers -- and resist the temptation to propose standard solution schema in consulting. I couldn't agree more.

It is difficult, I think, to operate this way as a consultant, until you've reached the point of "partnership" with a client.

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Friday, September 05, 2003



Mindsets

My friend Karl just sent me a notice about the latest mindset list from Beloit College. This is an annual list, and the older I get the more painful it is to read. He sends it to me because Beloit is my alma mater (I actually usually get it from several people who know that I went to Beloit).
I always enjoy reading it because at least once a year it is good to be reminded how the world is changing and how the attitudes, beliefs, and experiences of the people around us are so different. Beloit's list only tells us of the difference in mindset among, presumably, middle-class Americans.
The world as I understand it is the same for many people in my own social networks, but not everyone. And there are vast networks of people with whom the basis for conversation is some narrow space -- but one that has many doors.

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Wednesday, September 03, 2003



ISNAE

The Institute for Social Network Analysis of the Economy is in launch mode, with its first event coming up next week in Palo Alto. I received an email a few weeks ago from one of the founders, Don Steiny, requesting a conversation about ways to collaborate. It's exciting to see this type of activity, as social network analysis and the understanding of social networks gets more and more into economic and political thought.

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Tuesday, September 02, 2003



Culture and Social Network Analaysis

The AOK dialogues prompted a good dialogue about social network analysis. Martin Dugage blogged about the cultural problems of a survey-based analysis. He also brought up the question of electronically-collected data (most advisable for very large populations) and the privacy issues in conducting surveys and requesting people to "name names."

Views exchanged, minds opened (including mine).

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