Visible Path Blog from Sunbelt

Tuesday, February 08, 2005

1. He gave history and context to my work in understanding collaboration systems and contextual design, including (and especially) the human interface factors.
2. The seminars focused on building communities and networks, starting with the here and now. It is to my discredit that I did not keep in regular touch with my co-participants following the event.
3. I have used the bootstrap model of A, B, and C communities ever since that seminar. As a "C", I have always been in the role of sensing what's new (in information technology, organizational effectiveness, knowledge management) and bringing an understanding of how to apply the new stuff in organizations

Saturday, February 05, 2005

• If I say that networks can be managed, whom am I talking about? (Who is it who does the managing?) [You can really only manage the environment in which networks grow and develop; leadership is about network leverage.]
  
• In SNA surveys, how do you account for potential inaccuracy based on how people report about themselves? [I believe that good question design can improve the possibility of valid responses.]
  
• How well do people in a network understand the geometry of that network intuitively? [Not usually, but research shows that effective leaders understand the networks in their organizations.]
  
• If a network like Gennova has membership dues, how is it not a formal organization? What are the distinctions, really, between organizations, communities and networks? [This is my very large current inquiry, which is to understand distinctions in types of network and how to select governance models, membership boundaries, etc. in each.]
  
• How can you do a survey if you don't have a sampling frame (that is, you don't know who the people in the network actually are?) [Let people fill in the blanks to a question like "Whom do you go to when you need to solve a problem related to topic x?"]
  
• How do you decide what questions to ask? [Start with the presenting business problem and decide what you want to find out.]
• How do you avoid the fear of some people that "big brother" is out to find out about them? [Communicate, communicate, communicate. Sponsoring manager must publicly commit to honoring requests for privacy.]
  

Friday, February 04, 2005

If something is the same, ie. constant, invariable, can it be of interest to social scientists? I would think you need variability in order to explain anything. Maybe this is the contrast between social scientists and physics people interested in networks.

One reason that physicists like Barabasi are so excited about the “new”
science of networks is that it holds out the promise for general laws of networks that would apply across all kinds of networks. Those studying organizational networks have argued for some time that this quest for general laws may be misguided. Still, I for one say let’s not dampen the physicists enthusiasm just yet. Even if their quest for universal laws of networks proves unattainable, they are sure to throw up marvelous insights along the way.

...the physics approach to networks centers on the global properties and large scale organisation, while the social science approach is more individual based. Therefore physicists tend to study datasets with large numbers of nodes, while sociologists are content studying smaller networks. The other reason is educational. As a physicist, I find it much more demanding to read a sociology paper than I do reading a physics paper and I'm sure it's the case the other way around. I also think that the some really interesting research is/will be right at the interface between the two approaches.