Rachel Silber wrote in LO7759...
>"Valdis E. Krebs said: "
>>
>> We made the exact same discoveries in some of our client firms. TRW and
>> IBM had these exact situations, except that in the TRW situation the
>> emergent expert was 'suspected' by management of being an informal leader.
>> Both IBM and TRW (licensees of our network mapping/modeling/measuring
>> software, InFlow) wanted to see the emergent dynamics/structures in some
>> of their key processes. At IBM, the emergent expert was a suprise to
>> everyone, including the expert himself. Neither he, nor his manager,
>> realized how 'central' he was in disseminating and compiling information
>> on a new strategic technology. Tom Peters wrote about our methodolgoy
>> using the above IBM example. If you would like a fax of it please send me
>> you fax number.
>>
>> What is interesting here is that by being well connected, they gained even
>> more connections! The concept of 'increasing returns' (them that has
>> gets) in action!
>
>At the risk of pointing out the obvious, what you have described is
>not simply being well connected, but sharing and disseminating the
>value that those connections bring.
>
>Which leads me to restate your concluding point: "them that gives, gets".
Yes, Rachel it is one of those Blinding Glimpses of the Obvious! What is
amazing is that many people don't get/see it, until we put a network
diagram in front of them, and then the reaction is "But of course!"
The mantra "It's the economy, stuid!" won the 1992 US presidential
election. The mantra "It's the connections, stupid!" may be a key in
functioning effectively in the new economy.
Valdis Krebs
Krebs & Associates
Cleveland, Los Angeles
inflow@concentric.net
--"Valdis E. Krebs" <InFlow@cris.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>