Power of Networks: Interconnectedness Drives Change

Our world is beset by societal challenges that are large, complex, dynamic and highly contextual. Networks can play a transformative role in resolving these challenges by sparking an interconnected web of actors and actions. Catalysing networks is key to enabling a sustainable ecosystem with diverse actors who have the capability to sense, synthesise and respond to societal problems by varied means – both normative and descriptive. 

Networks are about relationships and interactions between actors in a system. Interactions can be of any type (e.g., consumes data, creates content, conducts workshops, etc.) which allow us to harness natural community responses and bridge the distance between those who need and actors who can.

In this 90 minutes webinar, Sanjay Purohit, Chief Curator – Societal Platform at EkStep Foundation, discussed the Power of Networks and covered:  

1. The importance of network effects and the view of a network as units of interactions – moving from 1:many interactions to many:many.
2. The need to facilitate interactions between and within formal and informal networks, involving state, civil society and markets, to catalyse large-scale systemic change. 
3. How can digital platforms amplify the impact of these interactions and enable societal change at scale? 

Sanjay Purohit, Chief Curator - Societal Platform, EkStep Foundation talks about the Power of Networks.

Originally published at Societal Platform

co-creating pathways for a resilient society

Societal Platform is a community of curators, catalysts, and network weavers. We pool our individual strengths and channel our collective imagination to enable social change leaders to advance their missions.

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by Societal Platform

From Nature’s Mutualistic Networks to More Resilient Human Networks

We have been taught to live in a competitive, survival-of-the-fittest world. But what if this has been wrong? What if the natural world, and the humans in it, are much more cooperative than competitive?

The idea of the survival of the fittest originated in Darwin’s Origin of Species, and his theory of natural selection. Sure, natural selection does have a role to play in evolution, but it might not be as important as we had previously thought. In fact, some scientists assign it a weight of just 1 out of 10 concerning the evolution of certain processes, such as the evolution of the anatomy of species^[i]. Other scientists suggest that evolution should not be considered in terms of species as separate from its environment, but at the level of the system itself (species + environment). Looking at it from this perspective, they maintain, is much simpler and governed by a much smaller set of laws, than analyzing the evolution of elements by themselves^[ii].

We can find examples of mutualism and cooperation all over the natural world, from pollinators and plants, to animals and the microbes living in their guts.  And in many cases this cooperation is not merely optional, but essential to life itself. Certain plants will not grow in soils where you cannot find a specific type of fungi, since they need to form a relationship with it in order to survive. Lichens are an association between a bacterium and a fungus. They are an organism that is an association of two different life forms, contradictory as the notion may seem. Trees communicate with each other through a network of mycorrhizae, a fungal structure invisible to the naked eye that connects their roots, transporting nourishment, messages and even teachings (yes, plants have cultural transmission and are able to learn from their neighbors)^[iii].  

And the human species is no exception. We have more bacteria living in our gut than we have cells in our bodies, and they influence our health, our moods and even our behaviors^[iv]. Without them, we cannot survive. (Not to mention the fungi that live basically everywhere and the microscopic mites on our skin.) We are not just a single organism; we are a small cosmos of organisms. And like all other species, we are not meant to just compete, but to cooperate harmoniously with those around us.

What is conspicuous about cooperative interactions in the natural world is that they happen in networks. This a very familiar word in the human lexicon, since we network for just about anything: for business, for trade, for information exchange. What can we learn from these well-functioning natural cooperative networks that we can apply to our human ones, so that they are more resilient?

First of all, if we take a look at mycorrhizal networks in old-growth fir forests^[v], we find that young saplings are established within the networks of veteran trees. Usually, the larger the trees (and the more resources they have), the more well-connected they are within the forest network. This highlights the importance of large mature trees in the architecture of the network, which have long life-histories of connection. Greater establishment of young saplings have also been shown when they are linked into the mycorrhizal network of larger trees. The lessons to learn from this are quite simple: if you have more resources, share them, and you will help others flourish. Also, we need multigenerational human networks: elders have a lot of wisdom to impart, and if youngsters are connected to them to “absorb” it, they are more likely to thrive.

The forest networks also have what we call small-world properties, meaning that individuals are closely knit together, and that you do not have to go through many to get from any one individual to another. Simple enough as well, right? Do not isolate yourself, if you connect and collaborate with others, you are also more likely to thrive in your community.

Forest network symbiosis is not just an affair between two or more organisms, but a complex assemblage of fungal and plant individuals that spans multiple generations. In them, fungus species form “living links” connecting trees and allowing them to communicate and exchange resources, and benefitting from the exchange as well. In our networks, human connections do not have to be strictly restricted to flows of information or products, they can be other people (facilitators, teachers, networkers), living links that enable effective exchange of any kind between other people or groups.

Last but not least, these networks are robust to perturbations, but fragile to the targeted removal of the “hubs”, large mature trees. If elders are left out or removed from contributing, the whole ecosystem is more likely to collapse.

So far, we have been looking at relatively simple networks, connecting individuals of a few species only, and belonging to the same forest “group”. Now let’s take it a step further and take a look at networks that involve far larger numbers of species interacting. And at the same time make an analogy with different “species” of organizations trying to cooperate.

There are several types of networks in nature, and they are of two main types: antagonistic (e.g: food webs, parasitism) and mutualistic (e.g: pollination, seed dispersal). A study by Thébault and Fontaine^[vi]analyzed several characteristics of both types of networks, focusing on pollination (mutualism) and food webs (antagonism), to find out what made them more persistent and resilient. They found out that the two types of networks behaved quite differently.

While antagonistic networks benefit from being modular (having subgroups that interact heavily amongst themselves and very little with other groups – does that sound familiar?), the cooperative mutualistic networks that we are interested in were strengthened by a nested structure. This means that there are a lot of “specialists” in the network, interacting with subsets of the group that “generalists” interact with. At an organizational level, “generalists” are larger organizations that have several areas and a wide range of action, such as groups focusing on governance and policy, and can interact with many other smaller, grassroots “specialists” focusing on one or two areas of action. How do we ensure the nested structure in a human network? We make sure that there are no local groups that are isolated from the world at large and from larger spheres of power. The smaller grassroots organizations and groups can (and should!) cooperate with each other at a local level, but not without being connected to larger organizations that ensure that they have a voice at a regional, national or global level. 

Another study^[viii] provides even more lessons to be learned from nestedness: it not only helps to reduce competition and increase the number of coexisting species, but a nested structure like this is likely to arise by itself, as long as new species enter the community at the places where they have the least competitive load. When a new group wants to cooperate, welcome it in the place where it is most needed, where the skills and value it provides are most lacking, and take the best advantage of the complementarity!

Mutualistic networks tend to have one other characteristic in common, which is related to nestedness: they are asymmetric. There are a few “generalists” and a whole lot of “specialists”^[ix]. The generalists interact with each other, but also with the specialists. A lot of grassroots activity is good:  but so is getting the word out there about your work and spreading local solutions to the global level—”Think Global, Act Local”.

The final two things that increase persistence and resilience of networks are two very simple ones: high diversity and high connectance. Diversity is self-explanatory, and quite obvious. High connectance means that a high percentage of the possible links are materialized, so also at this level, connect and collaborate as much as you can (within reason), and the benefit for all will be increased.

And here is a bonus lesson: a study by Evans et al.^[x] that analyzed the interconnectivity of networks on a British farm reached a very interesting conclusion. Two habitats that were not very representative in terms of area were disproportionately important. This gives us a clue that there may be groups out there with skills and areas of action that still tend to be overlooked at the grassroots and even the governance level (tipping my hat to the ethical technology and governance folks), but whose work others will rely immensely upon to be able to keep the integrity of the network.

But this is not the end of it: stay tuned for the multilayer nature of ecological networks and how to apply its lessons to community organizing!

[i] Lewin, Roger (1993) Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos. Phoenix, Orion Books, London

[ii] Lotka, Alfred (1925) The Elements of Physical Biology. Williams and Wilkins, Baltimore

[iii] Simmard, S. W. (2018) Mycorrhizal Networks Facilitate Tree Communication, Learning, and Memory. In: Memory and Learning in Plants. Springer International Publishing, AG

[iv] Gilbert, S. F., Sapp, J. & Tauber, A. I. (2012). A Symbiotic View Of Life: We Have Never Been Individuals. Quarterly Review Of Biology 87(4): 325-341

[v] Beiler, K. J. et al. (2010) Architecture of the wood-wide web: Rhizopogon spp. genets link multiple Douglas-fir cohorts. New Phytologist 185: 543–553

[vi] Thébault, E. & Fontaine, C. (2010) Stability of Ecological Communities and the Architecture of Mutualistic and Trophic Networks. Science 329: 853-856

[vii] Palazzi, M. J. et al. (2019) Online division of labour: emergent structures in Open Source Software. Scientific Reports 9(1): 1-11

[viii] Bastolla, U. et al. (2009) The architecture of mutualistic networks minimizes competition and increases biodiversity. Nature 458: 1018-1020

[ix] Bacompte, J. & Jordano, P. (2007) Plant-Animal Mutualistic Networks: The Architecture of Biodiversity. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst. 38: 567–93

[x] Evans, D. M., Pocock, M. O. J. & Memmott, J. (2013) The robustness of a network of ecological networks to habitat loss. Ecology Letters 16(7): 844-852

Originally published at Systems Change Alliance

Top Photo by veeterzy

Carolina Carvalho is a network ecologist from Portugal who researches the interconnectedness of living beings and how we might apply this knowledge to help the human species live harmoniously within the web of life.

PLEASE DONATE to help Network Weaver continue in it’s mission to offer free support and resources to networks worldwide.

by Carolina Carvalho

“Lean Weaving”: Creating Networks for a Future of Resilience and Regeneration

I’m fInishing up David Fleming’s book Surviving the Future, and buzzing with ideas and questions about the role of networks, network weaving and energy network science in these times of “systemic release” (see the adaptive cycle below, and more about the cycle here).

Fleming’s book, a curated collection of essays from the heftier Lean Logic, offers some compelling thinking about the trajectory of globalized and national economies – at best de-coupling, de-growth, and regeneration, and at worst catastrophic collapse – and the ways in which intentional and more localized culture building and reclamation as well as capacity conservation, development and management, might steer communities to healthier and more whole places post-market economy.

One of my favorite quotes from Fleming is that large-scale problems do not require large scale solutions; they require small-scale solutions within a large scale framework. That resonated immediately, even if I didn’t know exactly what he meant when I first read it. Re-reading more carefully, I hear Fleming making the argument that to take on systemic breakdown at scale is a fool’s errand – too massive, too slow, too much rigidity to deal with, too much potential conflict, too abstracted from real places and people.

Instead what is required is more nimble small-scale solutions happening iteratively and quickly (relative to how slow things move at larger levels). This suggests that action for resilience must happen at more local and regional levels, connecting diverse players in place, helping to encourage more robust exchanges of all kinds (including multiple “currencies”) and culture building. David Fleming offers the following definition of the lean economy (as opposed to the taut perpetual growth economy): “an economy held together by richly-developed social capital and culture, and organized around the rediscovery of community.” How might we weave that fabric even as others unravel?

Lean (network) weaving (a new term?) would focus on helping to create more intricate, high quality/high trust and diverse connections as well as facilitating robust, nourishing flows in tighter and more grounded cycles and systems. Part of the lean weaving would entail ensuring that smaller systems remain alert, quick and flexible so as to experiment, learn and adapt. And it would also maintain connection and communication between these smaller systems/clusters (Fleming’s “larger framework”), to facilitate learning and feedback of various kinds between them (not unlike proposed bioregional learning centers).

“The more flexible the sub-systems, the longer the expected life of the system as a whole.”
David Fleming

This idea of “lean weaving” also brings to mind the wisdom of network science as taught by Danielle Varda and colleagues at Visible Networks Lab. They make the point that when it comes to creating strong (resilient and regenerative) networks, more can be less in terms of the connections we have. Connectivity, like so much else in our mainstream economy and culture, can be ruled by a relentless growth imperative that is not strategic or sustainable and can cheat us of quality in favor of quantity.

More connections require more energy to manage, meaning there may ultimately be fewer substantive ties if we are spread too thin. Instead, the invitation is to think about how we mindfully maintain a certain number of manageable and enriching strong and weak ties, and think in terms of “structural holes.” For more on this network science view, visit this VNL blog post “We want to let you in on a network science secret – better networking is less networking.”

The COVID19 pandemic along with other mounting challenges may already be presenting the mandate and opportunity to get more keen and lean in our network thinking and weaving, not simply in the spirit of austerity and regression, but to cut an evolutionary path of resilience and regeneration (renewal). Network weavers of all kinds, what are you seeing and doing in this respect?

Originally published at Interaction Institute for Social Change

Curtis Ogden is a Senior Associate at the Interaction Institute for Social Change (IISC). Much of his work entails consulting with multi-stakeholder networks to strengthen and transform food, education, public health, and economic systems at local, state, regional, and national levels. He has worked with networks to launch and evolve through various stages of development.

by Curtis Ogden

The Power of Communities in Uncertain Times — Part 1

When systems collapse, people rise…

A tiny, invisible, and obscure virus has thrown the world into chaos. It has flummoxed and baffled nations, countries, politicians, scientists, doctors, presidents, principals, parents, students, in short, everyone. The gears of the post-Industrial world have ground to a juddering halt for the first time in history. A great pause button has been pressed. What multiple calamities over the last decade couldn’t achieve has been done by an invisible virus.

Do we see this as Armageddon or a chance to re-imagine a “world that works for all”? Can we appreciate the grand design?

We are witnessing unfathomable and profound suffering, particularly of the marginalized and the deprived, in a world that was horribly unprepared for a global calamity of this nature. Many are likening this period to the 1918 Spanish Flu, which swept across the world killing between 17 million and 100 million people worldwide. We don’t yet know what the death toll of Covid19 will be as the virus rampages across nations made fragile by inequity, flouting all efforts to contain it. What to me seems sad and surprising is the abject failure of high tech, big data, and big pharma in coming up with anything remotely groundbreaking in the face of this apocalypse.

Yet, in the midst of it all, can we hold our fear and uncertainty with compassion? Can we abide in this in-between space and listen to its messages?

Unfortunately, while the situation calls for “collective coherence,” we are experiencing divisive and disruptive politics; segregation of humanity based on religion, race, caste, class, creed, and gender; acrimonious and hostile behavior toward the marginalized and the minorities almost everywhere. These unfolding patterns reveal and underscore the emotional and spiritual schisms, estrangement, and hollowness afflicting societies today. The pandemic, on the other hand, is emphasizing a lesson that is the exact opposite of this sense of separation; it is repeatedly accentuating the deeply intertwined and inter-related nature of all life on this planet.

Are we truly sensing and listening? Do we feel it in our bones that none of us can be happy, healthy, and healed unless all of us are?

Sadly, we have become attuned to the Story of Separation where each one must fend for themselves, defeat the “enemies,” demolish the weak. We are used to waging wars. We can bomb, blast, bulldoze, battle, and build walls to keep the enemy at bay. Unfortunately, the coronavirus does not yield to guns or grenades. Hence, while we seek to “wage a war” against the virus — the language most nations are using — we are failing. Sadly, it also says something about our world that we are more prepared for war than to deal with global health, hunger, and humanitarian crises. No wonder, many governments are trying to handle this like a war. It exonerates them for being singularly unprepared.

The narrative of war is used as a legitimizing discourse. Wars inevitably have casualties. Wars require sacrifice. The narrative of war heroes is used to justify putting health workers at risk.

Not only is the analogy of war misplaced on factual grounds; it also misses the possibility to cultivate an imagination that builds on narratives of peace, solidarity and social justice — and to foster a more acute understanding of how we are all fundamentally dependent on one another as inhabitants of a shared planet.

~Stop Narrating the Pandemic as a Story of War

How would a resilient, responsive, and anti-fragile world have responded to the crisis? What can we collectively do to co-create such a world?

What is becoming evident is that in the face of this apocalypse, it is not high tech and military prowess but high touch and compassion that is saving the day — doctors, nurses, healthcare workers, grocery storekeepers, teachers, journalists, civilians, NGOs. Communities of citizens are coming together to distribute food to the hungry, make masks for hospitals, help stranded migrant workers in India reach home, and much more.

I wonder, when we come out of this crisis, how will our priorities change? How will we honor what truly makes us human? What choices will we make as individuals and collectives to envision and reinvent a resilient and regenerative future?

For a long time, the world has been teetering on the brink of collapse, and now Covid19 has pitched us headfirst into the center of it. The fissures and fractures in our societies and nations, the rifts and ruptures in our politics and policies, and the crudely papered-over sordid and squalid brokenness of the systems stand brutally exposed. We suddenly find ourselves floundering in a liminal space of uncertainty, ambiguity, and unknowing. Lost and adrift emotionally, spiritually, and even physically, we are scrambling to make sense of a world that has fallen apart, whose center proved too weak to hold and sustain. And as the center collapses, we can see the edges rising.

Are we noticing the rise of ordinary citizens? What will it take for this sense of inter-connectedness to persist even after the crisis is past? How can we continue to act from this place of Interbeing?

Despite the superficial gloss and glitz of the 21st century life, we have failed to build resilient societies. We have collectively made choices over decades that have brought us to this point in our civilization’s trajectory. We have ignored signs and warnings of ecological crisis, social turmoil, and political perfidy. We have long forgotten that we are inextricably and indelibly connected to all human and more-than-human life on this planet. I believe that Covid19 is giving us an opening to pause, reflect, and re-imagine a different world — a world of greater equity, justice, well-being, and security for all sentient beings.

What does a more integrated, thrivable, and regenerative world look like? How do we align with our inner source of being? How do we befriend our future emergent selves?

It is asking us to go beyond our current selves, befriend our emergent selves, and co-create a more beautiful world from this liminal space that we are currently in. Perhaps no other writer or poet has captured the essence of it like David Whyte…

Just Beyond Yourself

Just beyond
yourself.

It’s where
you need
to be.

Half a step
into
self-forgetting
and the rest
restored
by what
you’ll meet.

I see hope arising even in the midst of anxiety and anguish. Our forgotten humanity — submerged in the false busyness of our days — is rising to the surface. I am seeing myriad groups of individuals going beyond their selves and coming together to serve the desperate and the deprived even as governments, strategists, and policy-makers flounder and resort to denial, de-sensing, and destroying every little possibility out of avarice, dishonesty, and egotism. But the “movement of movements” is refusing to be subdued. As Otto Scharmer rightly said, As Systems Collapse, People Rise.

How can we come together as evolutionary communities to heal the planet? How can we bring our gifts in service of a regenerative future?

Paul Hawken described this “movement of movements” beautifully…

I believe that we are part of a movement that is greater, and deeper,
and broader than we ourselves know, or can know.
It flies under the radar of the media, by and large.
It is non-violent. It is grassroots.
It has no cluster bars, no armies and no helicopters.
It has no central ideology.
A male vertebrate is not in charge.

And it is this power of communities that I want to write about. I have been urging organizations to reinvent themselves as communities and ecosystems in my articles, some of which can be found here, here, and here. I believe that the power of communities — people coming together around a shared vision, passion, and purpose — can transform the world and take us toward an anti-fragile, resilient, and regenerative future.

How can communities of diverse and committed individuals reinvent and co-create the metaphors, narratives, and structures for a thrivable future?

“There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about.” — Margaret J. Wheatley

Let me digress a bit and explain what I mean by “communities.” It is NOT an echo-chamber where homophily — a fancy word for group think — is the norm. Echo-chambers are designed around the concept of “Us” vs “Them” — a constant “othering” that keeps the world polarized, divided, angst-ridden, and adversary-filled. We can see this everywhere with human beings turning against fellow humans on the grounds of caste, class, creed, religion, race, sex, age, food habits, and every other criterion we can imagine. Social media — once the dream of democratic communication and the fount of collective intelligence — have had exactly the opposite effect. It has exacerbated polarization, group-think, and schism under the guise of globally interconnected networks.

Instead of celebrating the vibrant, joyous, and abundant diversity that makes up our world, we are striving to create a monochrome palette that will render our planet dreary, dull, and dangerous. Our very regeneration and resilience lie in diversity and difference. This is where, I believe, consciously designed communities come in. Communities come into being when diverse individuals come together in the service of a purpose larger than themselves. A purpose that feels aligned with their own calling and invites all on a co-creative journey that moves them toward the purpose.

As the old world falls apart, what is emerging are networks of individuals stepping forward to take care of the brokenness, to heal the wounds with whatever resources are available to them, to step beyond the self into a larger space of oneness. They are as diverse as they come and yet they are bound together by a vision of a fairer, just, and a kind and compassionate world. Most of these communities have formed spontaneously in response to the appalling predicaments and miseries being faced by the dispossessed everywhere.

Such communities are built on voluntary participation based on inner alignment and coherence of purpose. They foster a deep sense of belonging, where everyone contributes from their sense of selfhood and unique capabilities. Such synergy cannot be forced but arises from an intermingling of varied perceptions; thus, the whole is always greater than the sum of the parts. Something is born that didn’t exist before. The intangible is expressed, the unthought is revealed, the elusive becomes explicit. The impossible gets done. And a “new way of being” is birthed. Hope refuses to die. New metaphors, narratives, and structures are co-created. Such is the power of intentional communities.

As the world teeters on the brink, we need such compassionate communities to be compasses that can guide us toward a future different from our past, that can become the “imaginal cells” of a more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.

May the best among us, the most visionary, the most inclusive, be the imaginal cells — for now we are in the soup. The outcome of disasters is not foreordained. It’s a conflict, one that takes place while things that were frozen, solid and locked up have become open and fluid — full of both the best and worst possibilities. We are both becalmed and in a state of profound change.

~Rebecca Solnit

I have explored the qualities and prerequisites of such intentional and conscious communities in Part 2 of this post.

*The tagline of this post is inspired by Otto Scharmer’s article of the same name.

Read part 2 HERE

Originally published HERE on June 1, 2020

Sahana Chattopadhyay is a global Speaker, Writer, Master Facilitator, Organization Development Consultant, and Coach. She works at the intersection of Complexity, Human Potential, Organizational Transformation, Systems Thinking, and Emergence. Her passion is to enable organizations to develop the capacities, skills, and mindsets to become “thrivable” in the face of uncertainty and ambiguity.

PLEASE DONATE to help Network Weaver continue in it’s mission to offer free support and resources to networks worldwide.

by Sahana Chattopadhyay