I'm often asked why I'm so passionate about SNA (Social Network Analysis) - why I'm continually amazed, why I find myself thinking about it and looking at life, organizations, and societies in new ways each day, why it is one of the few emerging disciplines in which there is more knowledge (old and new) than we could ever soak up with a single human brain, why doing these projects for Clients just doesn't feel like work to me.
As a result, I most often have a different response, largely shaped by current events or areas that I think would be of interest to the person asking the question. However, most would agree with me that finding links and drawing correlations between the following is nothing less than fascinating:
- Terror Networks (and the self-organization of the 9/11 Hijackers),
- How Slime-Mold Networks mirror Rail Networks in Tokyo,
- How Organizations are comprised of multiple, powerful, invisible, informal, self-organizing (sometimes "swarming") networks that drive how work "really gets done" (of which we intuitively know to be correct),
- How Epidemics spread through a population, such as AIDS, H1NI . . . even Obesity itself,
- How Knowledge flows (or doesn't flow) through Human Networks within Organizations, etc.
- How Conversation spreads and emanates through open-system networks, such as Twitter.
So if you're a fan of SNA, or perhaps a Practicioner/Tactician like myself, or just someone who stumbled upon this blog due to the title, I believe the following might really get the juices flowing.
Last night, I was watching CNN when Rice University Professor Douglas Brinkley was featured on Anderson Cooper 360. He spoke of a phenomenon that had never been brought to my attention, yet absolutely amazed me as only the self-organizing, decentralized, distributed, open-system of Nature itself can. For a brief preface, remember that Hurricane Katrina made landfall in the New Orleans area on Monday, August 29, 2005. Several levees were breached shortly after. The ensuing rescue and evacuation efforts were a debacle of the grandest proportions in American History. Many individuals and organizations had growing concerns about entering the floodwaters for ongoing rescue efforts due to diseases like Malaria, etc. However, there were the dragonflies . . .:
"On Tuesday dragonflies blanketed New Orleans, hovering just inches above the smelly floodwater, eating every mosquito in sight. Epidemiologists considered dragonflies -- called in backwoods areas, "The Devil's darning needles" -- an insatiable predator, one usually found in ponds and bayous. Contrary to the popular misperception, they don't bite or sting humans; in fact, they are as harmless as ladybugs. Female dragonflies lay their eggs (nymphs) in water or on floating plants. After Katrina, their eggs were deposited in the floodwater. Then aquatic larvae hatched. From then on, they started devouring mosquitos, dive-bombing them with aerial acrobatics that made the Coast Guard helicopters look clumsy by comparison. With a nearly 360-degree field of vision, can both stay stationary and soar to speeds of 60 mph (they are the fastest insects in the world).
Sometimes when a corpse was found floating around the streets of New Orleans, washed up against a chain-link fence or concrete wall, dragonflies hovered around the victim. Never did the dragonflies touch the flesh, hunting instead for maggots and fleas and mosquitoes, drawn to protect Katrina's victims just as they did its survivors."
This moves me - I imagine it might surprise you as well. See, individually, dragonflies have little to no intelligence per se'. Yet, just as ants and honeybees, there is an overarching "collective intelligence" that comes into play. The ability to map and visualize just how this happens is one of those things that just keeps me saying, "Wow"!
P.S. Just for a shameless plug, if you'd like to discuss how similar forms of Social Behavior and Human Dynamics are impacting your performance and/or achievement of goals within your organization, I believe you'll be highly surprised. Give me a ring at (404) 418-8152 or email me at: jl(at)knightbishop.com.
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