Dave Snowden, picking up on a question posed on an email list about whether all networks were communities blogged a set of assertions about networks and complexity.
His assertions are very similar to those that I outline in Net Work:
- If it’s a network, you can draw it.
- Every network has an underlying purpose and every network creates value.
- We can create a language of networks that enables us to identify, create, and alter its properties, boundaries, and environment.
- We can approach working with networks by understanding them as complex systems.
- Everyone in a network can influence the relationships in it and its outcomes.
- Norms, especially reciprocity and trust, are required for networks to be successful.
- Success networks are generative and reflective.
- All networks are alike (have the same fundmental discernible properties) and all networks are unique (in how they express those properties)
