B E H o p p e

Measuring and mapping networks can help us understand a system holistically.

With that in mind, I paused a week ago to read an obituary in the NY Times: "Lawrence B. Slobodkin, Pioneering Ecologist, Dies at 81." Curious to see what had made Slobodkin a pioneer in his own systems-oriented field, I read on and discovered his most famous paper. Published in 1960 as "Community Structure, Population Control and Competition," the paper's four pages contain a grand overview of how terrestrial ecosystems work, and is still widely discussed today.

Slobodkin and his co-authors present these distinct roles in the terrestrial ecosystem:

• fossil fuels
• sunlight
• producers (e.g., plants)
  
• decomposers
  
• herbivores
• carnivores

They then tackle the overarching question: for each role above, what is the critical factor that limits its growth? For example, in which roles are peers competing for scarce resources, and in which roles are populations controlled not by scarce resources but by predation?

Somehow, I am convinced that these roles map in a meaningful way more recent natural systems such as the world economy or American healthcare. Which parts of these systems correspond to which of the above roles in the terrestrial biosphere? Any ideas, anyone?

One thing that surprised me about Slobodkin's map of the biosphere was its early and explicit inclusion of fossil fuels. This inclusion makes a lot more sense to me now that I am reading (coincidentally) Michael Pollan's Ominivore's Dilemma, which also speaks to a holistic view of the terrestrial biosphere. One of the darker themes of the book is that human desire for productivity leads people to feed plants with fossil fuels instead of sunlight.

The same day Slobodkin's obituary was published, the NY Times also featured this headline: "Emphasis on growth is called misguided," reporting a paper commissioned by Nicolas Sarkozy and written by a pair of Nobel-laureate economists.

It's a lot to absorb. But strikes me as relevant to those of us interested in metrics that pertain to well-being.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License and is copyrighted (c) 2009 by Connective Associates LLC except where otherwise noted.

The wonderful Claire Reinelt recently shared this with me:

We invite ALL members of the leadership development community to join a free introductory webinar to the Leadership for a New Era (LNE) initiative on September 14th at 12:30 EDT (9:30 PDT). LNE is a collaborative learning initiative developed by the Leadership Learning Community (LLC), a nonprofit organization focused on connecting organizations and individuals in the leadership development field with a commitment to social equity. Through LNE we are establishing partnerships (such as these) to influence our current leadership development thinking and practice, and to promote a shift from a model of leadership focused on individual skills and attributes to a model of leadership that is inclusive, rooted in community, networked, and action-oriented. For additional information please visit the LNE website: http://leadershipforanewera.com

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License and is copyrighted (c) 2009 by Connective Associates LLC except where otherwise noted.

My previous post summarized "four fundamentals of networks" with special emphasis on the context of leadership. Today I'll take a closer look at the foundation of the four fundamentals: personal influence. This foundation is highlighted in the bottom two quadrants below, which share a network focus on influential positions and roles:
These two quadrants provide a good foundation for at least a couple reasons:

First, most of us naturally equate leadership with positions of personal influence. In their excellent article "Social Capital of Twenty-First Century Leaders," Dan Brass and David Krackhardt begin by saying, "Accomplishing work through others has always been the essence of leadership"; later in the chapter they simplify this to "Influence is the essence of leadership." As I summarized in this post, Brass and Krackhardt then describe how aspiring leaders can use social networks to gain as much influence as quickly as possible. (Their article really is outstanding, FYI.)

Second, centrality and structural holes--the network concepts underlying the highlighted two quadrants--are the two most intuitive notions of network structure. If you find "structural holes" less intuitive than "centrality," then just substitute "clustering" in place of "structural holes." Clustering refers to groups, structural holes to the gaps between groups: Just like foreground and background, they define each other in complementary partnership.

The topic of personal influence in social networks gets lots of attention. For example, this announcement crossed my desk last week: "'Influence is the future of media'. Influence is the hottest topic in marketing, advertising, media and social media today. Find out how to tap the power of influence." It's not too late to sign up for http://www.futureofinfluencesummit.com/.

Another view of influence and social networks crossed my desk a month ago: Duncan Watts, Columbia sociologist and principal research scientist for Yahoo, told Fast Company magazine his opinion of the idea that a subgroup of "influentials" is largely responsible for trend-setting: "It sort of sounds cool, but it's wonderfully persuasive only for as long as you don't think about it." Later in the article, Watts concludes: "If society is ready to embrace a trend, almost anyone can start one--and if it isn't, then almost no one can."

Are these views of influence hopelessly at odds? Perhaps not. As I explore that, I'll move to the top half of the four fundamentals of networks.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License and is copyrighted (c) 2009 by Connective Associates LLC except where otherwise noted.