[Podcast] Why Community Leaders Need to Understand Networks: With Bill Johnston and Dr. Lauren Vargas
Welcome to Season 2 of the Cohere Podcast!
In the first episode of Season 2 of the Cohere podcast, Bill Johnston and Dr. Lauren Vargas explore the concept of "network" as it relates to online and real-life communities.
The central theme of this season of the podcast will be networks, and in particular, the study of networks and the discipline of network science.
In this episode we cover the definitions of “network”, the relationship between a network and a community, the role networks have played in human development - framing key periods as the epochs of network development - and we list a number of key references for further reading.
The many definitions of “Network”
The use of the term “network”, and the intended meanings, span the range of technical infrastructure to the action of actively seeking connection with people:
The technical infrastructure linking people and things;
The implicit and dynamic connections between people in a group (aka social graph);
The activity of actively seeking connections;
Special places vs special people
How a network relates to a community
"The difference between a community and a network is that you belong to a community, but a network belongs to you."
Zygmund Bauman - as quoted in El Pais, Jan '12
Lauren’s take:
“The difference between a community and a network is that you belong to a community, but a network belongs to you. And when we talk about the network being connections, you are managing those connections, you're responsible for those connections. You are responsible for those initial bridges those initial edges. And I think with a community, you don't necessarily have that type of control because you are in it with other people and it's more of a sense of belonging and shared purpose, and identity. That's where the relationships really start to come into play.”
The Network Epochs
Distinct periods of transition where technology fueled a transformational shift in humanity’s use of networks.
Mobility & Transportation Networks
Analog Communications (telegraph / phone / TV)
The Commercial Internet (the dawn of digital communications)
Internet + Social Graph (the dawn of Facebook)
Internet + Social Graph + Algorithms (the dominance of Facebook)
And the big question: What’s next?
Additional sources referenced in the show:
"The Seventh Sense" - Joshua Cooper Ramo
"Network Science" - Albert-Laszlo Barabasi
"The Square and the Tower" - Niall Ferguson
"Mother Earth, Motherboard", Wired - Neal Stephenson
"The Hype Machine" - Sinan Aral
"Fixing the Social Media Crisis" - Exponential View podcast host Azeem Azhar interviews Sinan Aral
"Connected" - Nicholas Christakis, James Fowler
"Change" - Damon Centola
”Liquid Modernity” - Bauman, Zygmunt
