My understanding of hybrid, is that we have a hierarchy that shapes the organization, and we have decentralized informal connections that is needed for collaboration etc. In the decentralized networks, it is important that you know where to find your information you need, or with which people you can accumulate or gather it. Up and down, left and right, front and behind, everywhere.

By hybrid, I understand that to mean that execs and managers can choose to centralize and decentralize simultaneously, or in parallel, given the (inherent) flexibility of technology enhanced with (for example) hyperlinks and open standards, etc.

Becomes both / and architectural options all the way up .. and down

Hoping others can shed more light ..

As a student and non-academic practitioner, I focus mostly on applications .. and at an intuitive level, I think I see many.

To pick up on your line of questioning – let’s focus on the objective of ‘learning’. I think this is a short hop to innovation, but let’s keep it at learning.

The goal would be to create a ‘learning cell’ (with our industrial age paradigms, a ‘learning machine’ metaphor might be more intuitive, but for CAS we are best served to keep within an organic paradigm, so ‘learning cell’ is the better model.) As a very quick real-world example of self-organizing systems and the connections that a CAS ‘learning cell’ would need in order to function optimally, check out this new list of Twitter resources:

Complexity & CAS Stakeholder Group: http://bit.ly/casTML

Pardon the recursive example. The subject matter could be anything, basket weaving, blog writing, ecosystem reform. Since you and I are interested in CAS & Complexity, I thought we’d use this one.

So you and I want to learn more on the topic of “CAS & Complexity”. We could create a self-organizing CAS (as ‘learning cell’) that would (a.) establish knowledge of diverse content stakeholders (b.) physically or virtually connect with them .. we’ll stick with virtual for now, it’s cheaper, easier & faster !!, and then (c.) create some means of interdependent activity, which in the social media context, we’d refer to as ‘engagement’; in practical terms, this would take the form of blogs, blog comments, tweets, online chats, SKYPE sessions, emails or phone calls, depending on the degree of 1:1 vs. n:n engagement necessary; in the old, pre-SM world there was a physical proximity constraint, namely: conferences, meetings, institutes, universities.

Before going any deeper on CAS aspect of complexity science, I’d like to get some additional insight from others deeper in the CAS space.

I don’t know that I’m on solid ground w/ ‘learning cells’ just yet ..

Meantime, I can definitely start pulling together some other real world examples of ‘connectors’ that would help drive the heterarchy paradigm. I want to go back through Karen’s paper again (and the responses published with it) to make sure I understand the context she is operating within. If it’s Enterprise 2.0 and the corporate organization, I’ll be on very safe ground w/ my examples ..

Thanks so much for the focused conversation & questions. You have a great knack for asking excellent questions ..

I’m curious how you look at making the unofficial official and visible, like making the connector role more formal. Would it have impact on the connector? How would it have impact on the network? Are you changing hierarchical structures there?

About the CAS, I must admit that I’m not an insider to this theory. However, if you talk about diversify, connect, engage and learn, I think it depends on the purpose you’re after. Like I mentioned, it can be innovation, it can be learning, something else or a combination. Engaging (e.g. with the outside world) can lead to innovation for example. Connecting can be useful, but with who do you connect, who are connectors and what is it that you are after? I think I have to look into this CAS theory any time soon.

And please share some real-world examples if you like, I think we can all learn from them. It makes me very curious…

Re: connectors, I’ve been grappling for a ubiquitous way to identify people in a personal or community/organization network as well.

I have been calling my quest “In search of SMEs” (subject matter experts).

I think the connector problem will be solved in time as social media applications move to embrace more consistent profile information, which includes metadata tagging to make SME’s searchable, sortable, etc. This is already staring outside the firewall, and will eventually occur, I think, inside (the Enterprise 2.0 case). I agree power structures and old-paradigm thinking will impede rapid movement to these new models, but I think truly innovative organizations will realize the collaborative power in heterarchy-style solutions.

If heterarchy is embraced, the role of the connector must be both official and visible.

I am curious: in this thinking, are you not applying a complex adaptive systems (CAS) context for social and commercial organizations? I am a new student in the complexity space, but from my initial reading, I think organizations that can diversify, connect, engage & learn (4 CAS “attributes” per Scott Page perspective; I think of them as “enablers”) will achieve the highest collaboration potential, and in turn, be the most likely to innovate. Back to the SME context, both “diversify” and “engage” dynamics within CAS require awareness of expertise available to the team. Either a connector (as you and Karen define the role) or an online profile database will be needed to make such CAS-optimized capabilities operational, and again, my hope, ubiquitous.

My view of the resultant team: a “learning cell” –

On the above SME profiling challenge, I have some real-world scenarios I can share if you like, including tools that address profiles (and would-be connectors) both inside and outside the firewall, as well as some online Twitter communities working under the umbrella of CAS optimization.

Again, though, this is an exciting line of thinking. I look forward to your additional comments and insights.