The power of networks
Another awesome animation from RSA that underlines the history of network thinking and sheds the light on the tremendous benefits that come from a networked outlook of the world.
Clattering ThoughtsDo you hear that sound? It's my thoughts clattering! I had to set them loose. They are the thoughts of someone who sees the world in nodes and links. Because "Once you begin to study networks it is difficult not to see them everywhere." - Sanjeev Goyal.The power of networksAnother awesome animation from RSA that underlines the history of network thinking and sheds the light on the tremendous benefits that come from a networked outlook of the world.
The "I don't know" ManifestoIn our culture, not to know is to be at fault socially… People pretend to know lots of things they don’t know. Because the worst thing to do is appear to be uninformed about something, to not have an opinion… We should know the limits of our knowledge and understand what we don’t know, and be wiling to explore things we don’t know without feeling embarrassed of not knowing about them.~ Sir Ken Robinson "I don't know" must be one of the most stigmatized sentences in the history of languages. Yet, these simple words are the gate to mind expansion, discovery and thereby growth. Embracing the possibility of not knowing is the first step into exploring and eventually knowing. I couldn't put it any better than Wislawa Szymborska, 1996 Nobel prize in literature when he says:
That is why I decided to create an "I don't know" manifesto, so we can all remember that it's ok Not to know, we just have to adopt the right attitude about it. 
“I was gratified to be able to answer promptly. I said, "I don't know."”
Mark Twain
Sunday musing: Networks are more than the sum of their nodes
by KTVee
I stumbled upon this fascinating video where Nicholas Christakis gives the example of the slim mold to affirm how "connecting to each other and assembling ourselves in networks creates a super organism with unexpected properties". Our networks are not the sum of their nodes, they exhibit a collective intelligence not available to each individual member!
Snippet: Leveraging weak tiesThe people who truly succeed in business are the ones who actually have figured out how to mobilize people who are not their direct reports. Everyone can get their direct reports to work for them, but getting people who do not have to give you their time to engage and to support you and to want you to succeed is something that is sorely missing from B-school courses. ~New York Times,Oct.3, 2009. Business section Social Media for NGOsTapping into the power of social networks has become an imperative for all kind of organizations. And while for-profits seem to be joining the band wagon easily enough, non-profits and NGOs are yet to follow. In an excellent initiative, the Moroccan UNCG (United Nations Communication Group) & the Social Media Club Casablanca organized a workshop dubbed "Social Media and MDGs" and I was invited to talk about Social Media for NGOs. In the era of virtual activism, pro-consumers, wikinomics and the coming of age of the Net-Generation, surfing the 2.0 wave is no longer an option but rather an obligation for any NGO seeking sustainability. Listening, dialogue, support and innovation, those are the promises of the web 2.0. But how can we get the most out of these new technologies? Which organizational culture should we nurture? How can NGOs become “Platforms”? In the spirit of "If you get it, share it!" I'm sharing the presentation I gave at the workshop. I would love to hear what you think! Social Media for NGOs Part I Social Media for NGOs Part II
Sunday musing: The hyperconnectivity paradox
Photo courtesy: .rexguo
"We are living in an isolation that would have been unimaginable to our ancestors, and yet we have never been more accessible." This is the paradox of the hyper connected world we are living today. "Social media have made us more densely networked than ever. Yet for all this connectivity we have never been lonelier."
On a thought-provoking eye-opening article on The Atlantic, Stephen Marche lays down the dense body of research that have been exploring the effect of social networks on our psych.
Yet within this world of instant and absolute communication, unbounded by limits of time or space, we suffer from unprecedented alienation. We have never been more detached from one another, or lonelier. In a world consumed by ever more novel modes of socializing, we have less and less actual society. We live in an accelerating contradiction: the more connected we become, the lonelier we are. We were promised a global village; instead we inhabit the drab cul-de-sacs and endless freeways of a vast suburb of information. On the same note, Sherry Turkle tackles how we're increasingly "expecting more from technology and less from each other". We are substituting conversations by mere connections.
We're designing technologies that will give us the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship. We turn to technology to help us feel connected in ways we can comfortably control. ...We're getting used to a new way of being alone together. People want to be with each other, but also elsewhere -- connected to all the different places they want to be. People want to customize their lives. They want to go in and out of all the places they are because the thing that matters most to them is control over where they put their attention. But as Marche underlines, "LONELINESS IS CERTAINLY not something that Facebook or Twitter or any of the lesser forms of social media is doing to us. We are doing it to ourselves". We need to work on our relationship with 2.0 technologies in a way that it won't severe our real life relationships but rather enrich them. It's doable, we just need to be more conscious about it!
On a final note, Tiffany ShlainRun beautifully makes the case of how technologies are not only changing what we do, but changing us as well.
Related articles:
Snippet
In the future the power will be with the people who can funnel and share information and have relationships across the organization. In particular, the people who are the most networked with each other are privy to exclusive information—moreover, because of their cross-department relationships, they will be able to act quickly and decisively. The same will be true for people who can articulate, express, and interpret what is happening outside the organization and convince the people within of their point of view.
~Charlene Li Thinking networks for better teams
I've since recognized that it wasn't just the team of seven; they were drawing on a powerful internal network of around 50 people throughout the company who weren't formally involved, but whose informal participation allowed the team to tap a broad range of expertise and aggressively push through a new business model. The team of seven had no skilled marketers, for instance, and success would require marketing insights, which ultimately came through people outside the team. Informal structure is a black box to most people. Yet if you "put an organizational chart (the formal structure) in front of most any employee and they will tell you the boxes and lines only partially reflect the way work gets done in their organization"1. We somehow know that a hidden structure exists, yet we are often unable to tangibly comprehend it. Unless we see the organization through a network-aware lens, we will always have an incomplete version of the truth. A team should be seen as a network embedded in other networks. Not only that, we need to understand that the texture of these embedding networks can affect the performance of the team. Research2 has actually found that most productive teams were particularly characterized by having had more diverse information contacts outside the project team than did the less productive teams. I'm not saying that we must toss away all what we've learned so far about teams. All I'm saying is that we have to be aware by now that "Network Analysis" techniques should be an essential part of every manager's toolbox to be used when needs be. The narrow notion of a team overlooks the disciplined choices that different performance situations require; it also overlooks the power of a much broader, much more powerful network. In global situations, networks are increasingly important, but they do not supercede the disciplined real team option in situations where a few people with complementary skills need accomplish a clear performance purpose. 1. Robert Cross: "Making Invisible Work Visible: Using Social Network Analysis to Support Strategic Collaboration" 2. Michael E. D. Koenig: “Gatekeepers, Boundary Spanners, and Social Network Analysis Creating the Project Team” Related articles: Power of networked teams Snippet“I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies: 1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. 2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. 3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.” Sunday musing: The power of introverts At least one-third of the people we know are introverts. They are the ones who prefer listening to speaking, reading to partying; who innovate and create but dislike self-promotion; who favor working on their own over brainstorming in teams. Although they are often labeled "quiet," it is to introverts that we owe many of the great contributions to society--from van Gogh’s sunflowers to the invention of the personal computer. One of the books I'm most excited about reading this year is Susan Cain's "Quiet: The power of Introverts in a world that can't stop talking". Maybe because I think of myself as an introvert or maybe just because it essentially questions the common belief that being outgoing, outspoken and social is the only path to success. It takes all kind of people to make the world, and as much as we need extroverts, introverts "bring extraordinary talents and abilities to the world, and should be encouraged and celebrated". In a passionate TED talk, Susan makes the case that introversion is dramatically undervalued, and that the world will be a much better place if our culture stopped solely celebrating extroversion and accepted the power of Quiet as well. I think I'll go back to my books' suitcase now. Until we talk again, have a great Sunday!
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