Posted in Networks

September 17, 2010

The Power of Potlucks

potluck

|Photo by UU-Jackson|http://www.flickr.com/photos/9240679@N04/2876693936/in/photostream|

This post comes courtesy of IISC friend Beth Tener of New Directions Collaborative.  You can find the original post here.

One of the most inspiring speeches we heard at the Slow Money National Gathering was from Tom Stearns, President of High Mowing Organic Seeds. His company is based in Hardwick, a small town in northern Vermont, which was featured in The New York Times article entitled “Uniting Around Food to Save an Ailing Town”. Remarkably, over the last three years, the local area has added 150 new jobs to an existing 500 jobs, spread across many small companies, all associated with the local food economy.

One of the key ways this came about was through strong locally-based business networks. Read More

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August 2, 2010

Transcend Organizational Constraints

Collective Leadership

This is a very exciting time for those of us who are working to apply the logic of networks to the work of social change.  Our ideas are gaining traction as more and more experiments start to point towards success.  Life online, the viral nature of meaningful stories and our human desire for deeper connection all serve to confirm our intuitive understanding of life in a network.  However, as we step into this paradigm shift, as we start to approve of these ideas, we still have to contend with the constraints of the organizational and funding structures within which we currently work. Read More

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July 21, 2010

Power and Love

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photo by partie traumatic

“Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic.  Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

This often quoted comment by Dr. King forms the foundation of Adam Kahane’s new book,  Love and Power: A theory and practice of social change. Melinda Weekes and I attended a recent book talk by Adam, attracted to the topic because, at IISC we’ve been thinking through and practicing the connections among power, love, networks and collaboration for years now.  Much of what Adam shared resonates with our thinking. The book builds on the thinking of theologian Paul Tillich.   His definitions are worth taking a closer look:

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July 7, 2010

Network “Governance” Take Two

CatDancing

|Photo by CatDancing|http://www.flickr.com/photos/catdancing/2442760677/sizes/m/|

Yesterday, Steve Waddell wrote an excellent post on the Networking Action blog about initiating a network.  In it, he talks about four lessons he’s learned in starting a network:

  1. Be passion-driven and work-focused
  2. Think “community-development” not “governance structure”
  3. Use leading tools
  4. Integrate reflection, learning and flexibility

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July 7, 2010

Network "Governance" Take Two

CatDancing

|Photo by CatDancing|http://www.flickr.com/photos/catdancing/2442760677/sizes/m/|

Yesterday, Steve Waddell wrote an excellent post on the Networking Action blog about initiating a network.  In it, he talks about four lessons he’s learned in starting a network:

  1. Be passion-driven and work-focused
  2. Think “community-development” not “governance structure”
  3. Use leading tools
  4. Integrate reflection, learning and flexibility

Read More

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June 23, 2010

Network Governance

lee_adcock

|Photo by Lee Adcock|http://www.flickr.com/photos/leeadc/2821894989/sizes/m/|

A few of us at IISC have been talking recently about network governance – trying to gather what we’ve learned about what kinds of governance structures have worked with networks.  It’s sparked a lot of questions – and I had the great fortune of meeting with the amazing Jessica Lipnack recently to ask her advice about what she would suggest.  For those who don’t know Jessica, she and her husband Jeff Stamps have been working with and studying networks for over 30 years and have literally written the book (actually the BOOKS) on networks and working with virtual teams over these many years.

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June 7, 2010

The Networked Nonprofit

Networked Nonprofit

I was glad to follow a few of my Tweeter peers as they commented on the recent “Personal Democracy Forum” (#PDF10).  Allison Fine and Beth Kanter offered a conversational keynote based on their new book “The Networked Nonprofit.”  So much of what they say is directly connected to the work that we do here at the Interaction Institute for Social Change, that I think it’s best to let Beth speak for herself. Read More

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April 2, 2010

Elephants, Riders, and Networks

elephant

|Photo by Robert Nyman|http://www.flickr.com/photos/robertnyman/189668104|

On Wednesday, IISC hosted an impressive group of network building practitioners to discuss what we have collectively learned and have yet to discover about building networks for social change. Melinda and I tweeted ourselves silly with participants’ insights (which you can find by searching hashtag #NTWK). While there is still so much to sort through and have sink in, one of our small group break out sessions got me thinking about how we can preach the potential of networks without turning folk away. As we talked, some pieces began to fall into place in part with the help of the work of Chip and Dan Heath.

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March 31, 2010

Networks for Social Change

Today, IISC and friends will be spending the day digging into how to advance the use of networks for social change.  We’ll post about it afterward – but if you want to check out the conversation as we go, follow #NTWK on twitter. See you there!

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February 24, 2010

Networks for Creating Change

philipbouchard

|Photo by Philip Bouchard|http://www.flickr.com/photos/pbouchard/2826560107/sizes/m/|

I just had the great fortune of spending seven days in Dakar, Senegal (and traveling back and forth to it). An amazing trip – and the two twenty hour travel days gave me time to really dig into the book “Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives” by Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler.? I read it within the context of doing work in Senegal on a project that’s global in scope – and also thinking back to many of the other initiatives I’ve worked on.

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February 17, 2010

Who Are We Affected By?

Connected

I’ve been reading, with great fascination, the book Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives by Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler — and I read a fascinating article in the New York Times yesterday morning about the rise of the Teaparty Movement across the US.  And I’m fascinated by the intersections.

I’d heard about Christakis and Fowler’s research a while ago – when they announced that things like obesity and love move through networks.  Upon closer reading, I’m fascinated that there are, generally, three degrees of influence.  That we are affected by our friends (one degree), by the friends of our friends (two degrees) and by the friends of their friends (three degrees).  Beyond that, there’s not much that’s measurable.  But at three degrees of influence, we are deeply influenced by a large number of people! And it’s who are in many ways local to us (though certainly that is changing). Read More

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January 22, 2010

The Generation Gap

Having just come off the holidays, when family members are likely to be gathered around as captive (and hopefully not tortured) audiences, we experience those stand-out moments of the highly anticipated and often dreaded….intergenerational conversation.

And if you’re like me, you realize that although these conversations on issues we care about  are often hard, emotionally charged and possibly frustrating Read More

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