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.

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Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Building "Virtual" Networks in Corporations

I've just had the pleasure, over the past couple of months, to collaborate with Nancy Settle-Murphy on articles for the Chrysalis newsletter, Communique. The second of two articles, Real-time conversations crucial for networking in a virtual world, was posted today. The first article, Networking in a virtual world an essential skill for success, was published in May and I was remiss in posting a link.

Nancy specializes in coaching virtual teams, working with managers and the teams themselves to develop productive relationships across cultures and time zones. I've known Nancy for many years (we worked together at Digital Equipment); she and I reconnected at a Boston ODLG meeting last year when Bruce Hoppe and I presented on ONA/SNA (Bruce blogged this in April, 2005). "Virtual" is a funny word for me right now, as I'm deep into writing Net Work, and the distinction virtual works for online communities as well as distributed communities, but there's a difference and I've not yet found the right pair of words to signify the difference.

When Nancy suggested we co-author some articles about how to network in a globally distributed organization, I accepted immediately. Fortunately, Nancy and I live in neighboring towns and we were able to co-create in person. What a treat! Nancy is terrific at exploring and prompting ideas I didn't even know I had. For this month's newsletter, she got me thinking about the root model of conversations, and the conversation and the content of the article flowed from there. Kudos to Nancy for her excellent writing (I take no credit beyond participating in the conversations that created the content and offering editorial suggestions and changes) and seeing a possibility for relatedness.

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patti anklam. How to make networks work.

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