Network

Networks, networks, networks. It's a hot topic. And it's so natural. It's so biological. And we're starting to get the habit of it. The world is getting smaller. The world is flat. Crowdsourcing, folksonomies, social networks, community ownership, Google, the web, The Network Is The Computer™…

The Big Network Picture—a summary:

• It started in Information and Communication Technology, with Peter Deutsch's Eight Fallacies of Distributed Computing.
• The distribution of power, open communication, radical transparency and community-owned endeavors into uncharted territory, calling out for a A New Logic.
• One's waste is another's food in Living Networks—live it and base your services and products on this natural law.
• Information Brokers keep turn information into knowledge and knowledge into wisdom.
• Central Connectors care about who they know while Peripheral Specialists care about what they know—mix them to catalyze unprecedented growth.
• Create a web of webs by spotting and nurturing Boundary Spanners.
• Pamper your network beyond the Tipping Point since significance precedes momentum.
• Accept and become familiar with the Network Power Law—those that have shall get.
• All this creates a new Augmented Social Fabric where relationships and reputation become the new monetary units.
• Dreaming of Armillaria—a fully distristributed social reputation system, illustrated by the Wizard Rabbit Treasurer for care-free reputation-based distributed massive data storage.

Wired just posted A Brief History of the Superorganism, Part One—on how a population of creatures can be viewed as a high-level organism unto itself rather than a collection of disparate individuals.