***** To join INSNA, visit http://www.insna.org ***** Hi – Don't you think Communities have a social dimension that networks lack. No. All social networks have social dimensions. Communities are indeed networks too, but that is only one aspect of how one would describe or model them. That’s the old chestnut. It has been circulating now for years and years, going on decades. Forgettaboutit! The notion that communities or CoPs are somehow special, higher-order forms of social networks, absolved from network science, it the problem. Most or all organizational and social networks are purposeful, not just communities. C'mon. Getting the lofty community establishment to embrace social network logic has been a tall order. It's like describing water to a fish or telling where children really come from to adolescents... Hold your breath, we are on the verge of a network breakthrough! Cheers, John From: Sudhir Desai [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2011 10:25 AM To: [log in to unmask] Cc: John T. Maloney (jheuristic); [log in to unmask]; [log in to unmask]; [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Value John, Don't you think Communities have a social dimension that networks lack. Networks describe things from a structural perspective. Communities are indeed networks too, but that is only one aspect of how one would describe or model them. cheers On 5/19/11 12:03 PM, John T. Maloney (jheuristic) wrote: Hi - Here is a new report -- “Promoting and assessing value creation in communities and networks: a conceptual framework” http://bit.ly/mPVmsF There is a breakthrough in the report: the CoP establishment is embracing networks! Wow!!! Getting the CoP people to embrace social networks has been slow and arduous. Thing is, communities are just one basic social network structure and pattern. They are important but nothing special really. This was/is very hard for the CoP people to accept, since they have a LOT invested in their notion of communities and CoPs! Fortunately, things are changing. CoP people are now accepting the reality, the empirical basis, the real science and robust practice of social networks and value. Woo-hoo! It has been a long time coming. Fortunately, we are patient… For example, in the attached paper, the unit of analysis is “community/network.” That slash speaks volumes. It is a breakthrough! Networks will subsume communities with confidence. See in the report how they position SNA/ONA. They do still have a lot of the CoP baggage in this report, like many of the dubious metrics. Anyway, very encouraging they are revealing the first glimpse of our network future to CoP practitioners. Cheers, -j 1 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Complexity Science" group. To post to this group, send email to [log in to unmask] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [log in to unmask] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/complexity-science?hl=en. _____________________________________________________________________ SOCNET is a service of INSNA, the professional association for social network researchers (http://www.insna.org). To unsubscribe, send an email message to [log in to unmask] containing the line UNSUBSCRIBE SOCNET in the body of the message.