Field Building? What is that?

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Social network analysis reveals the nodes and their connections. Yes. “The nodes in the network are the people and groups while the links show relationships or flows between the nodes.” Great. What about the things that support the nodes and their ability to make connections. This is the field of the network, and it functions as an energetic even magnetic space that impacts the network in profound ways. We are defined not only by the positive space of our presence and the relationships we bear to each other, but also the space between us, the “negative space” referred to in art class.

If you want to change the configuration of the social network map, changing behavior is one avenue, but it is often difficult to encourage and enforce. Another option is to change the environment. It can be easier, perhaps, to find levers for change in this layer.

So when I talk about field-building, I am talking about that space–the environment of the network. Created by convening events, participating in dialogs, creating avenues to disperse messages, refining the language and frames of the network and its purpose.

Ornet.com network image

Friend Wheel

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This friend wheel thing is pretty fun on Facebook. How connected are your friends? To each other. Keep in mind this is only as good as the data and the condition that your friends be on the social network.

friend wheel

KINS and Growing a Field

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Looking over Capital Missions Companies, Key Initiator Network Strategy (KINS), I have many points of agreement about the principles behind the strategies. I believe

• that we are all one
• that there are key laws of nature including distributed intelligence and emergence which we can learn from
• that there is strength in weak ties
• that peer-to-peer relationship offer great power
• that abundance, generosity, and trust figure strongly in our evolution

And we do need resource efficient ways to make large social change. So this is my spin and twist on what I understand about KINS.

Spreading behaviors path of 5

1. Establish credibility. To make network change, change agents require credibility. Susan answers the credibility issue by asking for powerful high-status actors. I would say, sure those help. High-status is one way of being credible; it is not the only way.

2. Encourage Inter-organizational Networks. Professionalization and inter-organizational networks act as sources for spreading the behavior through a network of common interest. There need to be paths in the network for connections to spread behaviors.

3. Fosters powerful models. Modeling innovative behavior can lead to the spread of that behavior. Lead by example. This can be reflexive A<-=->B or mimentic A–>B

4. Focus on commonality. Susan asserts that the spread happens through actors in similar structural positions. I prefer to broaden that: it spreads through actors who have something, anything that they know to be in common. The common trait between A and B need not be the common trait in B and C. There may be a propensity for dispersal of behaviors at a structural peer level, but it is not a requirement or limitation.

5. Emerge effective collective action. Open space for mobilization and coordination of community of individuals and organization around a common cause.

Agreed: “Homogeneous interests, a sense of shared identity, and dense social networks increase a group’s ability to mobilize its resources.”

So that is how I am understanding and reframing what I understand of KINS.

However, this does not speak to how to create homogenous interests, shared sense of identity, nor dense social networks. How do we do that?

All over the place and focus

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I suppose to some people my interests appear to be all over the place: philanthropy, currencies, technology, visualization, mapping, marketing, coaching, leadership, process arts, community development, art, creativity, and some other issues too like globalization, the bottom of the pyramid, social entrepreneurship, etc. And most of these areas I have enough understanding to listen and ask good questions…but not enough to debate academically on the finer points or the history. Coaching might be the exception. Maybe. I am not a specialist. And some say it is a world where we ought to be specialized. I don’t know about that. I think it is a world where we ought to connect and have engaging conversations.

Sometimes, in our lives, we find the varied paths we lead all connecting down the road somewhere. All this leads together…

How? Field building. I will post soon a longer explanation of field building, along with some tidbits of conversation and great links for those who are interested. For now, let me simply explain that field building is the conscious collective development of a network of purpose (both the nodes and the space between the nodes). And I see this as being critical for our evolution. We need to adapt to survive and for the planet to survive. We need to understand our world in more useful and appropriate ways. And all these interests of mine lead back to the many tools, processes, and systems that play a role in field building. An example–Social Network Analysis is an emerging field…It is defining itself, the practices, examining what distinctions are valuable and which are not. It changes how organizations work, and values human connection. It requires message management for maintaining a cohesive set of meaningful terms. It requires leadership to grow the edges and community to build the depths. It takes funding and marketing to keep thriving. It takes mapping and visualization to track and analyze itself. Other examples are Digital Media and Education, Currencies/Flows, and Thrivability (next evolution of sustainability). Sometimes fields are in transition too, like the work we are doing in Philanthropy to democratize giving, promote giving while living, encourage micro-philanthropy, etc.

We need to change our world, to understand it in new ways, to work in new ways. I see my work as building fields that help with that process. And why? It comes back to my core purpose–to help people transform their lives and live with passionate purpose.

Thriving with Complexity

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From simplistic thinking to embracing complexity…writes Dave Pollard.

He states:

There are ten things to remember about complex adaptive systems (which include all social and ecological systems):

  • It is impossible to know ‘enough’ about such systems to prescribe blanket ‘solutions’ to ‘problems’ in such systems: There are too many variables. A one size answer never fits all in such systems.
  • The wisdom of crowds is essential to even a basic understanding of such systems: The more people involved in understanding, thinking about, and making decisions about such systems, the more likely those decisions are to be effective….
  • Such systems are unpredictable: Because there are so many variables, many of them unknown, it is folly to even attempt to predict what will happen, even in the short term….
  • Many of the variables in such systems are uncontrollable…
  • In such systems, prevention is difficult but better than a cure after the fact…Prevention requires imagination, and unfortunately we live in a world (especially true in large organizations, where imagination is actively discouraged) of terrible imaginative poverty….
  • In such systems there are no ‘best practices’ or ‘best policies’: Every situation in complex adaptive systems is unique. Trust the people closest to that situation to know what to do, don’t try to impose some practice that worked well in some completely different context (though telling a story about that practice might help those closest to the situation decide whether it could be adapted to their situation)….
  • In such systems, great models can spread but they usually can’t be scaled… If you don’t understand why this almost always fails, re-read Small is Beautiful.
  • There is a tendency for those working in such systems to presume ‘learned helplessness’ of customers and employees: …And failure to engage customers and employees in co-producing the product is a tragic waste of great opportunity. The key is knowing how to engage them: Not through passive questionnaires or surveys, but through conversations, stories, and presenting the ‘problem’ to them so they can help you appreciate it better and then address it….
  • In such systems, genuine decentralization is almost always a good idea: That means pushing out real authority along with responsibility….
  • In such systems, networks outperform hierarchies: This is a corollary of the other nine tenets of complex adaptive systems. Information, ideas and working models spread faster and more effectively peer-to-peer than up and down hierarchies.

Networks. Adaptive Systems.

Listen. Learn network theory. Go read Valdis Krebs white papers, and understand how power works in networks, and how smart communities work. Then grab Linked. And wait, there is more. On top of that add some understanding of incentives and acknowledgment. Now you have basic tools for creating healthy flowing adaptive systems. It isn’t enough. It is a great start.

Let us weave these networks to deal with the complexity around us, moving, flowing, growing. Let us thrive together.

Listen. Trust. Flourish.

Boston — Uplift Academy

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I was there. I witnessed it. I will attest. What happened? Well, many wonderful and good-hearted people joined together in strings of conversation about uplift. What is uplift? Let’s jump on the elevator headed for good.

Jeffe Ashe and his co-worker Vinod from Oxfam explained savings-led microfinance. Fascinating stuff. To me it:

    encourages self-sufficiency
    rejects foreign aid dependencies
    leverages community capital and social capital
    contains community profits (rather than leaching them outside)
    builds capacity and skills for entrepreneurship
    spreads virally and independent of specific NGOs…

Sounds like the values we picked up in the theoretical portions of our discussions. Straight from the mouths of pale white men to the ears of this pale white woman, we have the academic analysis of how complex systems need to work in the global environment–late-binding, core/periphery networks, Reed’s law…

We came across our disciplines to develop a common language and a common vision. We might not have crossed as many boundaries (national, ethnic, “otherness”) as I might have liked, but we held the world in our hearts and spoke of love, healing, strength, connectness, community, and understanding.

I will be watching, listening, questioning, inquiring, probing, delving, weaving.

People I will be paying attention to?