Danny Butt on Sun, 25 Apr 2004 20:02:52 +0200 (CEST) |
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<nettime> Re: Organised Networks |
My thanks to Ned for a typically insightful paper that touches on a large number of things I'm interested in (that is, I guess, why we share network). A few comments that come to mind, mostly questions I'd like to hear comments or leads on. 1) It strikes me that network has become one of those terms (see e.g. 'innovation', 'radical') that is performing too many duties. I think Ned's distinction between "networked organisations" and "organised networks" is fair enough, but perhaps it is really trying to indicate different *psychologies* of networking (or communication, connection, other words we had before networks). The example of alpha-male anarchist organisations Ned mentions is a vivid one. For us as nodes, selfconsciously thinking about "networks" raises questions about difference, complementarity / similarity / autonomy, Same/Other, protocols and negotiation, conflict. From my POV, expectations around these issues are the stuff of network sustainability, but they receive too little attention in network discourse. Perhaps a serious dose of psychoanalytically-inflected feminist theory would be just the thing for network theory. Perhaps we should turn our attention to the nodes as much as the bandwidth and protocols. As Spivak put it in discussion of Marxism , too much theory uses a “post-representationalist vocabulary” that hides an essentialist agenda, which is usually an unreconstructed version of the imperial human subject. Specificity and location offer ways of thinking that through I think. 2) I support Ned's call for attention to strategy, and there are some interesting questions that come to mind. Is it possible to pursue "relatively autonomous" :7 strategies and tactics, if these modes are somewhat opposed, while also pursuing praxis? Maybe it is if we take an empirical approach :) to network effects, but consider the network's internal functioning as well as the external ones (achievements). Not enough organisations (or networks) do internal health checks in my view. These are the dialogues like "Where are we going?" "How do we feel about our current interactions?" Consulting speak, perhaps, but again I'd argue critical questions for network health. They specifically raise the issues of commitment. I have a relative who's unwell at the moment and one of the things I worry about is that they just doesn't seem that committed to living. Yet discussing future plans raises this commitment and overall life quality. I've seen networks go through similar phases, cycles where there's not much explicit commitment, which generates a low-interaction environment where commitment falls even further. Networks are best when there's something to look forward to, or perhaps, given the large number of networks we associate with, a good strategy can boost our participation in networks that may not be our default choices for socio-cultural reasons. Fibreculture's physical meetings for all listmembers are useful in that way. 3) A strategy which will bring in difference, though, generally entails getting people to agree to that strategy at an organisational level. So there needs to be shared experience, culture, languages, modes. This is perhaps the paradox I'm really interested in about networks and groups generally. Some level of organisation can help break the dynamics of mimesis. What are the ideal dynamics for ICT-mediated groups which seek to link heterogeneous communities? The fibreculture example of a facilitation group which couldn't agree on anything, devolved to taskforces who don't necessarily know what each other are doing, highlight for me the amorphous nature of such organisational forms and the difficulty in getting them right. Ironically, (given Ned's identification of the network/market link made by education bureaucrats) the discussions around corporate governance are probably useful (or at least they have been to me). See Corporate Board Member magazine's "Emerging Trends in Corporate Governance" supplement (2002) which is online somewhere. There's no one-size-fits all solution, it's really a case of getting something which facilitates appropriate attention to both strategic and tactical imperatives, and continually re-evaluating it. In my experience bureaucracy is really just organisation which stops being evaluated, which is usually because it suits someone in power. This goes for anarchist collectives as much as MNCs. 4) My preferred place to start for a short analysis of "social capital" would be Portes, A. (1998). Social capital: its origins and applications in modern sociology. Annual Review of Sociology, 24(1), 1-25. I like Agre as much as the next person, but like most gringos his view of social capital is a little bound up in liberal humanism for my tastes. ka kite x.d -- http://www.dannybutt.net On Apr 22, 2004, at 11:19 PM, Ned Rossiter wrote: > The Life of Mobile Data: Technology, Mobility and Data Subjectivity > April 15-16, 2004 > University of Surrey, England > http://risome.soc.surrey.ac.uk/conference.htm > > > 'Organised Networks Institutionalise to give Mobile Information a > Strategic Potential' > > Ned Rossiter, Centre for Media Research, University of Ulster > <N.Rossiter@ulster.ac.uk> <...> # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net