Managing The Polarities Of Contact In A Network

Longer-term sustainability in a network is supported by managing the polarities of contact in the network. Specifically, I am focusing on the polarities of contracting and expansion. Each represents a different focus that needs to coexist in a larger network for that network to be ultimately effective and sustainable. I view these as akin to breathing which requires both a contracting and expansion phase.

In approaching this discussion, we need to be mindful that in the overall network level of system, there are larger and smaller groupings. The smaller groupings are often called clusters or communities (of practice). The larger grouping is the overall network. The boundary of the network is its periphery.

Contracting with regard to a network is seen in the dynamic of "birds of a feather." Individuals in a network form dyads and most significantly triads. These are based on commonalities. Triads result because it is a natural human phenomenon to want to introduce one's friends to each other. Triads then connect. As time goes on, connections are established across all of the different individuals (nodes) in these connected triads. One ends up with a community of like-minded others.

The focus here is inward within the community. The emphasis is on establishing trust, relationships and contact. There is a wondrous, harmonious beauty as a community builds and interacts. We desire to be affiliated with like-minded others. This is one aspect of the important phenomenon of a network. Such a close grouping can prove to be highly effective in implementing previously derived knowledge.

I see this as a kind of contracting. The members of a cluster differentiate themselves from others who do not share immediate commonalities. This may be due to differing perspectives or different agendas at the current moment. The cluster pulls in members from the larger network. Other individuals (nodes) then move into other clusters. Other members exist as isolates apart from the cluster and out towards the periphery of the larger network.

The challenge arises in this harmonious clustering when the community or cluster needs to be innovative. Here the community encounters the underbelly of its harmonious side. In this situation, the confluent community will likely only be able to continually revisit the ideas that all share. What is necessary here is to reach out into the differentiated world to make contact with new and fresh ideas held by others.

These others may exist in other communities within the larger network or exist as isolates outside the immediate cluster or community. The isolates may exist on the periphery of the network. Though an isolate relative to the subject cluster, the individual node may in fact be part of another network beyond the network in question and thereby part of another rich tradition.

In order to be fully innovative, the community in question must have the ability to reach out to and make contact with those holding differing, fresh and needed perspectives. These perspectives will then need to be brought into the deliberations within the subject cluster. It is not necessarily the point for these other individuals to find a permanent home in the cluster. They will, however, need to exist at the end of a link that runs to the cluster. They will need to be pulled in to the extent necessary for their perspective to be heard.

There is a well-known paper by Granovetter in which he sets out his finding with regard to looking for new jobs. Networking amongst one's close friends - those with whom one has strong ties does not appear to be the most successful strategy. Instead, finding a new job results more from utilizing one's weak ties - ties to people with whom one has occasional contact. The point here is that talking to people who know what you know does not help as much as talking to people who know what you do not know. There have also been studies that point out that network success is a function of finding the sweet spot between the polarities of contraction and expansion.

Another way of talking about this polarity is that of exploration and exploitation. In a network, clusters and the network as a whole oscillate between exploration of what is not known and exploitation of what is already known. There is the contact one has as a result of building trustful relationships with those in one's immediate environment. There is also the contact that results from reaching out to those who do not hold the same perspective of reality and being able to benefit from their perspective.