Posted by Suw Charman-Anderson

Talking about networks in many ways. Focusing on the people side of this. Not going to talk so much about tech or wikis or blogs, going to focus on networks as a concept that’s useful personally and in business.

People have always formed networks. Wrote a book about networks in 1979, published in ‘82, wondering what happened to the issues from the 60s. Sent letters to ask for names, then sent letters to those people. Ended up with 50,000 people - all by snailmail - interesting in networks.

Web caused explosion of networking - much more is now possible. It’s people that make organisations what they are. The network is us.

Now talking about Zoetrope.com, the writers’ community started by Francis Ford Coppola. [I'm a member of Zoetrope, btw.]. Asked what ‘network’ is in different languages and it turns out that in many of them, it’s still ‘network’. All these networks we have are the same thing, just different manifestations.

Four networks in enterprise
- organisational network
- working networks
- knowledge networks
- social networks

Need to be careful about privacy, as without it network is damaged. Yet a lot of useful information can be gathered.

If things are going badly? Is the purpose clear? Do you know who is doing what? Who is linked to who? People, purpose, links.

Technology is not enough, it’s really about the people. Can take this simple model and do a lot with it.

Principles provide consistency when working in online spaces. Realtime techs attempt to replicate face-to-face experiences and will always fall short. Asynchronous techs are the more important ones, which change the way that things work.

Online spaces much have a place for people, links, purposes. Must learn to do this in a consistent way.

Virtual teams great, but teams can become very insular and lose sight of the larger organisation we’re part of. Good on focus, but losing context.

We all need to be connected.