Networks, Complexity, and Relatedness

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.

This blog is MOVING: new site is almost ready: change your readers, now: http://www.pattianklam.com/blog

Sunday, February 29, 2004

Greeting Card for Social Networkers

I found a greeting card at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, from Knock Knock.

Outside: IT'S NOT WHO YOU KNOW

Inside: IT'S WHO KNOWS YOU

(bottom: I know you.)

posted by Patti | permalink (click to comment)
(0) comments

Tuesday, February 24, 2004

On the relatedness end of things

I just read Jon Udell on the application development of social software (InfoWorld: Is social networking just another men’s group?)

This awakened my third theme (relatedness) for a moment, as I was reminded of the work of Jean Baker Miller and how it inspired my friend Maureen Harvey to launch a project at Digital to look at women in the software engineering group. A part of the task force that engaged in a year-long dialogue about (1)what women bring to work that's different from men, and (2)the forces in the work environment that don't enable them to use those gifts fully. It was during this time that I met the late Anita Borg, whose mission in life was to bring more women into computer engineering disciplines.

A key theme in this work is that women are, in the main, better at relationships than men, and that in fact relationships are how women define themselves. Dr. Miller once said to me, when I asked her about her vision for the future, and she said, in effect, that when women are able to fully bring their gifts to the workplace it will be nothing short of transformation -- a better place for everyone.

Google, I just learned, has announced the Anita Borg Scholarships for women in computing, to further Anita's work.

In the report of our task force we wrote that it was women were well suited to dealing with the challenges of increasingly complex, interdependent computing systems. We hear very well.

posted by Patti | permalink (click to comment)
(0) comments

Sunday, February 22, 2004

Dave Winer talk at Microsoft on Weblogs

Dave Winer's talk (from the Harvard Berkman Center) Talk at Microsoft Research Laboratory is worth listen, if you have the time. He talks about the work is doing at Harvard to integrate weblogs into the academic environment. He identifies the type of people who will blog (connectors and mavens), and the role that they will play in the organization, working with senior professors who "blog" by writing in research journals.

posted by Patti | permalink (click to comment)
(0) comments

Saturday, February 14, 2004

The Urbach Letter - February 2004

Came on this in a Ryze posting ... a nice introduction to social software and connections ... The Urbach Letter - February 2004

posted by Patti | permalink (click to comment)
(0) comments

Thursday, February 12, 2004

On the Complexity Front

Things are starting to happen in KM and complexity, and I'm starting to get my juices up to apply some of the Cynefin methods (now that I passed the certification! yeah!).

...Ross Wirth has started an organizational complexity group at Yahoo!

...David Gurteen, who is a master of managing and creating knowledge about knowledge management has created a new page on his extensive web site devoted to complexity, and he has announced a conference in London coming up in a few weeks, the Third Gurteen Knowledge Conferfence, on Managing Organizational Complexity.

Meanwhile, I had to pass on speaking at the upcoming 7th Annual Virtual Communities conference at the Hague. There will be a good line-up there, including a paper co-authored by my Gennova buddy Jenny Ambrozek and Joe Cothrel. Both were pioneers in setting up and managing virtual communities. I hate to miss all this, but family and the beach beckon.

posted by Patti | permalink (click to comment)
(0) comments

Friday, February 06, 2004

The Context of Connections

Once again, Stowe Boyd's thinking on social networks and social software (in his latest Darwin magazine article on the topic, The Barriers of Content and Context ) resonates.

We have different social networks (personal, family, and even different work contexts) and have yet to see differentiation in the software becoming available that lets us convey the context of a connection. Stowe also argues for a future in which content -- content about the nature of connections as well as the content passed among connections -- is more easily expressed. He concludes:

Social tools, i.e., software designed to intentionally shape culture, are going to become the cornerstone of a revolution in information technology. Social networking applications, one variant of social tools, will rapidly expand in functionality through the integration of conventional and innovative approaches to counter the context-and-content limitations of today's applications.

posted by Patti | permalink (click to comment)
(0) comments

Wednesday, February 04, 2004

KM and the Social Network

John Maloney's next KM Cluster meeting is in New York City, March 26th. He's called a meeting of my network of support for social network analysis and KM. It will be an awesome experience to have Stowe Boyd, Valdis Krebs, Rob Cross, Debra Amidon, Dave Harden, and Igor Perisic and Peter Katz all in the same room at the same time!

NYC Spring 2004

posted by Patti | permalink (click to comment)
(0) comments

Tuesday, February 03, 2004

Judith Meskill has moved her social software weblog ...

January was a black hole for me. No new relationships, not much time maintaining relationships, and some slipping.... on the blog front, I missed a number of interesting "events" in the social software world. Thank goodness for my network! What follow are the gleanings from a host of emails and chatter over the past month ...

Judith Meskill has moved the social software commentary from her knowledge notes to a new site,The Social Software Weblog - socialsoftware.weblogsinc.com, which is just marvelous. She covers lots of newcomers in the software space, events, and everything that happened while I slept... give yourself time for a good read.

posted by Patti | permalink (click to comment)
(0) comments

patti anklam. How to make networks work.

links: networks

My ONA Page

Rob Cross
Bruce Hoppe
Valdis Krebs
INSNA
ONA-prac. The online community for learners and practitioners in the emerging field of Organizational Network Analysis.

links: blogroll

21st Century Organization
Anecdote

Dave Snowden
David Gurteen
Jack Vinson