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.

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Social Network Analysis Hits CIO Magazine

Right on top of an article in Harvard's Working Knowledge about the New CIO Role: Change Warrior comes an article in CIO Magazine itself on Social Network Analysis:
Who Knows Whom, And Who Knows What?. The game is afoot. Introducing software infrastructure is simply an attractor for changes in a corporate environment.

At dinner tonight with Verna Allee, I recounted my work at Digital in the 1980s developing SDML, a precursor to HTML with many of the same roots. Back then, I was pretty naive about the implications for the change in work practices, work models, roles and responsibilities that would change with the introduction of a document preparation system that put design decisions in the hands of people who had used only rote commands; that pushed writers into putting their own hands in the text of the online version of the manuscript (Yes, this was in days before personal computers, MS office, and all that). I (and the community) mostly survived that transitions caused by the way the software worked, and it was a powerful experience I carry with me always.

Now, working with SNA, I am at a similar juncture: it's not "doing SNA" to a group of people, it's developing work habits that embrace creating and sustaining networks of relationships and managing them responsibly; SNA is just a diagnostic that often helps stimulate the thinking around the change. But the real changes are in work habis and work practices, in understanding how people accomplish their work, the roles of other people in that accomplishment, and moving that work to a higher level.

posted by Patti | permalink (click to comment)

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