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April 18, 2012 by Patti

New ONA Resources

This past week brought a few nodes in the interconnected map of resources (articles, papers, blogs) related to organizational network analysis (ONA).

Maya Townsend (@mayapar), Partnering Resources, has begun to blog on Change, Talent, Strategy, and Collaboration. Two of her first posts reveal how intimately she combines her expertise in ONA with her organizational development and strategic consulting expertise. One, The Most Important Positions in Your Company, provides a nice summary of three key roles in networks: hubs, gatekeepers, and pulse takers. The post links to a short white paper that expand on the topic. If you are interested in networks and organizational development, you’ll find a number of gems on Maya’s site, as she is very generous with her tools, exercises, and cases. (She was a great partner to me in a NetWorkShop I conducted for the Boston Facilitator’s Roundtable last December.)

Meanwhile, over at Activate Networks‘ blog (written by Steve Wardell) references a good article from People and Strategy last year on organizational network analysis. Authors Dan Novak, Mark Rennaker, and Paulette Turner set the stage nicely for talking about the need for ONA as follows:

Using structure to articulate the intent of an organization creates a challenge for leaders because it creates a perception of stability…However in knowledge intensive organizations, people and information need to be brought together in adaptable and flexible ways.

They present five brief case studies focused on culture change in silo’d organizations. In the concluding case study, the COO offered after-action insights, including this echo of the above:

Leaders may expect a neat and clean [organizational] design, but complex, networked realities may appear messy.

I always like a good ONA read. Keeps the juices flowing. Other flows in progress:

  • My Optimice colleagues Cai Kjaer, Laurie Lock Lee and I have just completed module 2 of 3 in our first running of the ONA Online Practitioner Course. We complete Module 3 next week when Marc Smith takes the student cohort into NodeXL territory. It’s not too late to sign up for the U.S. course that runs April 25 – May 22, with the interactive sessions May 8, May 15, and May 22.

And just to boggle my brain a bit, I’m attending the Collective Intelligence symposium at M.I.T. tomorrow and Friday. I hope to tweet from there (my twittering is a bit rusty, but I can still count to 140.)

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May 7, 2011 by Patti

I’m with Phil. Won’t You Help, Too?

I suspect that not many people noticed there have been a small number of articles in fairly well-known media over the past several months about the Phil Campbell convention, the 2nd of its kind, planned for June 17 and 18th this year in the town of (can you guess it?) Phil Campbell, Alabama. Here’s what appeared in the WSJ:


This quirky idea came from a Phil Campbell I am related to by marriage, that is, my brother’s marriage to Phil’s sister, Veronica. Phil and Veronica found out about and visited this small town in Alabama n 1994, and that discovery led to the the first Phil Campbell gathering in Phil Campbell in 1995. All persons named Phil, Philip, Phillip, Philippe, Philipp, Philippa, Felip, Felipe, Filip, Filippo, Filippu, Filipe, Filype, Phylip, Phillep, Pilib, Fülöp, Fulup, Phyllis, Philice, and Philomena that our Phil could find were invited.

In 1995, 22 Phils and 1 Phyllis showed up. 

The 2011 event was planned to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the town. Hundreds of namesakes had been located and invited, including Phils from Australia and the UK.    Phil also invited  Jason Biggs, the Hollywood actor who plays him in the upcoming film “Grassroots,” as an honorary Phil Campbell. Jason will be there.

However, last month’s tornadoes hit the town of Phil Campbell very hard; 26 deaths were confirmed, the school and churches were demolished. Under our Phil’s leadership, the gathering of Phil Campbells quickly became a relief effort. The gathering will go on as planned, but the Phils, Philips, Phyllises, Felipes, etc. will show up ready to volunteer for rebuilding efforts, and with as large a check as possible to go to the relief and rebuilding of Phil Campbell, AL.

You can help, too. If you haven’t (or even if you have) already donated to support tornado relief efforts, you can do so on the I’m with Phil site. Let’s help the Phils make it a really big check.

 

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August 23, 2009 by Patti

Hidden Talents of Imaginary Friends

“Imaginary friends” is the term Nancy White has used to describe the hundreds of people she has developed relationships with in our shared virtual spaces. They are presumably not imaginary once we’ve met them as we have seen the flesh and blood. But we still cannot “imagine” the depth of people we barely know. This morning I learned of great and unimagined talents of two of my no-longer-quite-imaginary friends:

I’m not surprised that these talented colleagues have additional talents, just that I didn’t happen to know what these were. Of course we don’t have time in the (usually) scant hours we see people face-to-face.

And of course, that’s just what I learned in 15 minutes this morning reading blogs. What if I actually started looking?

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February 21, 2009 by Patti

Communities and Networks — A brilliant synthesis

Pretend, for a moment, that it is February 17th and I was blogging as I was supposed to. I would have written a blog post about a great new collaborative brainchild of Nancy White and Tony Karrer that I feel privileged to have been invited to. It’s call the Communities and Networks Connection, and you will see my badge posted proudly here.

February 17th was the launch date, and I missed it while deeply immersed in a windowless office at a client’s site, where my primary task is to bring the concepts and (more importantly) the practices of networks and communities to bear. So I really need to pay more attention.

The Communities and Networks Connection has a number of really terrific aspects. It aggregates the blogs of many of the thought leaders in community and network thinking, featuring many people I’ve come to know and work with. So, it’s kind of like one-stop shopping. On one site, I can check on the most recent blogs of people I already subscribe to including Jessica Lipnack (Endless Knots), Lilia Efimova (Mathemagenic), Shawn Callahan (Anecdote), Valdis Krebs (TNT – The Network Thinker), Jenny Ambrozek (21st Century Organization), John Tropea (Library Clips), Mike Gotta (Collaborative Thinking) as well as Nancy and Tony linked above but I also can see what bloggers I’ve been missing and start to pay attention.

On the site, you can see the aggregated posts for the day, or click on any of the featured members. If you click on Networks, Complexity, and Relatedness from there, you’ll see that it has also has mined my posts for keyword concepts, tools, and information types. These keywords are all rolled up on the site’s main page.

Thank you, Nancy and Tony, for rolling out such a service — to all those who want to see the latest thinking on communities and networks in one place, nicely organized, and bound to be an exciting stop on the morning’s reading lists.

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