Posted in Networks

September 13, 2016

Network Behaviors to Leverage Network Effects

Think like a network, act like a node.

network_effectAt IISC, we continue to emphasize that networks, not organizations, are the unit of social change. Part of the reason for this is that networks at their best are able to leverage what are known as “network effects.” These effects, as described by Madeleine Taylor and Peter Plastrik, include the following:

Rapid Growth and Diffusion

Through its myriad nodes and links, as well as the ongoing addition of participants and new pathways, a dense and intricate network can expand quickly and broadly. This can be critical for spreading information and other resources and mobilizing actors in ways that organizations simply cannot achieve.

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August 23, 2016

Networks, Collective Impact and Waking Up to Whiteness

“Processes aimed at racial equity change can overlook the privileged side of inequity.”

-Gita Gulati-Partee and Maggie Potapchuk, “Paying Attention to White Culture and Privilege: A Missing Link to Advancing Racial Equity”

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In numerous social change networks that we support at IISC, racial equity has been put at the center of the work, whether or not that was the initial impetus for coming together. This is not seen as ancillary to the change effort, but now understood as foundational, in that systemic inequity around race is part and parcel of the water in which we swim. In a few of these networks where there is a majority of white participants, increasing numbers of people are asking what they can do about structural racism, and one response is that there is important work to be done around whiteness and white privilege. As Gita Gulati-Partee and Maggie Potapchuk point out, this is often a critical missing link in racial equity work. Read More

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August 17, 2016

Networks for Social Change: Living as Relating

Networks, or webs, are core to living systems. Thinking and looking through a network lens can help people to understand the patterns and quality of connection that either make life possible and enable liveliness or threaten life and livelihood.

Chilean biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, in their work on “cognition” in living systems, propose that there is no knowing outside of connecting or relating.

“The world as we know it emerges out of the way we relate to each other and the wider natural process.”

In other words, according to Maturana and Varela, it is through connecting and relating that “a world is brought forward.” The quality and qualities of that world depend, in large part, upon how people and other elements of living systems connect and relate to one another. Read More

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August 1, 2016

Net Work: “Soft” Tools for Real Change

I recently re-read portions of Limits to Growth: The 30 Year Update by Donella Meadows, Jorgen Randers and Dennis Meadows. This second update to the original 1972 report from the Club of Rome affirms that current business-as-usual resource usage globally has our socioeconomic systems headed toward collapse shortly after the year 2050. The update reiterates the necessity of taking the impending crisis seriously and mobilizing quickly to adopt strategies such as:

While all of this serves as a strong wake-up (or stay awake) call, what most caught my attention was the concluding chapter, where the authors move from discussion of the technical fixes required to get us on the right track to a serious appeal to more adaptive approaches. Read More

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July 12, 2016

On Love and Justice

This weekend I attended CommonBound 2016, the bi-annual conference of the New Economy Coalition (NEC), “…a [160-member] network of organizations imagining and building a future where people, communities, and ecosystems thrive. Together, we are creating deep change in our economy and politics—placing power in the hands of people and uprooting legacies of harm—so that a fundamentally new system can take root.”

As one might imagine given the mission, the conference was attended by people working on a wide range of projects from public engagement, participatory budgeting, and environmental sustainability to cooperatives, reparations, community land trusts, fossil fuel divestment and more. The 900 attendees were all in some way engaged in doing the very important work of organizing, shifting culture, developing alternative institutions and creative solutions, writing, resisting, and fundraising. All towards a goal of a society that is more just, more democratic, and more sustainable. NEC itself is fast becoming a network of networks engaging groups in the cooperative movement, movement for black lives, labor movement, student divestment network, environmental movement and more. Held in Buffalo, NY, the conference had all the makings of a pivotal moment in movement history, where a true intersectional approach to changing society for the better could be nurtured. The opportunities for significant connections and collaborations to develop were endless.

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July 7, 2016

Distribution, Diversity, Dignity: Networking the “Business Case” for a Regional Food System

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For the past 4 years, IISC has supported Food Solutions New England (FSNE) in developing a network and collaborative practices to forward its work for “an equitable, ecological regional food system that supports thriving communities.” In the past year, this work has included conducting a system mapping and analysis process to identify leverage areas for regional strategy development. One of these leverage areas is “making the business case for an equitable ecological regional food system,” which includes thinking at the levels of individual food-related businesses, economic development, and political economy. Strategy development will begin in earnest this fall, and as a precursor, IISC and FSNE facilitated a convening of businesses and community members in the Boston area to discuss how business are already aligning with the New England Food Vision and the real challenges that stand in the way. What follows is a summary of that evening’s conversation.

“You have to be patient, develop trust, and have people go with you.” These were words from Karen Masterson, co-owner of Johnny’s Luncheonette in Newton, MA as she talked about what it takes to align her business with the aspirations of the New England Food Vision. Read More

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June 22, 2016

Feeling Orlando

“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. This is the interrelated structure of all reality.”

– Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

13473695_10207332726252235_689325856_nThat line is one my favorite lines from one of my favorite (probably my favorite) writing of Dr. King: Letter from Birmingham (City) Jail. It’s always resonated really strongly with me and it was also dated on my birth date, 16 April (I write and think about that speech often). Since I heard it, I’ve really tried to live believe it and feel it. I do genuinely think that deeply believing that idea is our (humans) only hope of getting out alive of the mess we’re creating of the planet and our societies.

Well, last week, I felt that interrelatedness in new way. Normally, I would keep stuff like this to myself, but I’ve found that sharing it has done more good than not. And since my colleague, Curtis Ogden, has introduced me to “thinking out loud,” I committed to start trying it. So here goes.

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June 20, 2016

Digital Lessons from the 2016 FSNE Racial Equity Challenge

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IISC Communications was ecstatic to partner with Food Solutions New England (FSNE) on the 2016 Racial Equity Challenge. IISC Comms is always trying to learn about how digital and analog interactions support each other. Given IISC’s mission “to create social justice and sustainability,” we know that both face-to-face conversations and online/digital conversations are needed. We also know that while many social change organizations are hesitant to engage in online spaces (it’s tricky, new, and the potential for backlash is high), for-profit corporations haven’t hesitated at all. In fact, they pay massive sums of money for online campaigning and research regarding how people interact with and consume digital content.  Social change organizations don’t have near an equivalent amount of resources devoted to digital spaces to tip the conversation.

We saw an opportunity this Spring to join forces with FSNE’s Communications Coordinator, Johanna Rosen, to normalize conversations about race and racism.  The group was hosting a second year of a 21-day Equity Habit Building Challenge. The challenge is a mix of sharing resources and sparking conversations in an effort to increase understanding about racial equity. FSNE is a network of food producers and community advocates, spread around the region with various levels of experience and access to digital media. What tools will best support this process, we asked? Read More

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June 16, 2016

Leveraging a New (Food) System Narrative

Slides for Summit 2016Last week over 190 delegates attended the 6th annual New England Food Summit in Bridgeport, Connecticut. This marked the completion of a cycle through all six New England states and an important moment in the evolution of Food Solutions New England, a network of networks that has been in development with IISC’s support around a bold Food Vision that sees the region becoming more connected and self-sufficient while supporting a more equitable, eco-logical and vibrant food economy.

Leading up to the Summit, the FSNE Network Team engaged in a year-long system mapping and analysis process that yielded a few key systemic health indicators associated with the Vision as well as a set of leverage areas for framing and advancing regional strategies in the direction of the Vision:

  1. Engaging and mobilizing people for action
  2. Cultivating and connecting leadership
  3. Making the business case for a more robust, equitable and eco-logical regional food system
  4. Weaving diverse knowledge and inspiration into a new food narrative

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June 7, 2016

Human Factors in Regenerative Networks

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re·gen·er·a·tion
ˌjenəˈrāSH(ə)n/

Renewal, revival, restoration; spiritual transformation; an aspect of living systems without which there would be no life; a process through which whole new organisms may be created from fractions of organisms; an adaptive and evolutionary trait that plays out at different systemic levels.

Readers of this blog know that at IISC we do not see building networks simply as a tactic, rather networks are more fundamental as structures underlying healthy living systems (ecosystems, human communities, economies, etc.). This is especially true when there is focus on the regenerative potential of social-ecological networks. That is, in paying attention to qualities of diversity, intricacy and flow in network structures, people can support systems’ ability to self-organize, adapt and evolve in ways that deliver vitality to participants and to the whole. 

In my conversations with the Research Alliance for Regenerative Economics, we have been developing a list of design principles for and indicators of the human factors in healthy (regenerative) networks. Here is a working list of 12 and readers are invited to offer adjustments, additions, and comments: Read More

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May 31, 2016

Creating Space: Resilience and Healthy Networks

Last week I attended another meeting of the Research Alliance for Regenerative Economics (RARE) and we deepened our conversation about a “regenerative framework” for guiding system change. Underlying our conversations is the premise that many living systems – ecological, economic, social – are reaching or have already reached a point of crisis where they can no longer respond to changing conditions in such a way that humanity, or significant portions thereof, can thrive. Another way of saying this is that these systems are losing their capability for resilience (to “bounce back” from perturbations) and regeneration (to self-organize and evolve). Our discussions are focused specifically on the dynamics of networks, human and otherwise, and what these can tell us about why we are where we are socially and ecologically and what can be done to alter current conditions and humanity’s long-term prospects.

Breeding disconnection, diminishing diversity and stemming resources flows is “irresponsible.”

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