Networks v. networking. What's the difference?

When I started writing this post, my intention was to call it ‘Why I hate the term networking’. It’s a term I try not to use. Last week I received an invitation to ‘an evening of great networking’ on the Dixie Green, a replica paddleboat that churns up and down the Thames. Is there out there who feels enthusiastic about the idea of a whole evening of networking?

I have always disliked the word because of its connotations. To me networking conveys a self-interested, instrumental way of interacting with people, in which others are viewed as a means to further one’s own agenda. It makes me think of those awkward conversations where people look over your shoulder to see who might be more useful to talk to in the room. This has happened to me many times, but I fear that on even more occasions I’ve done it to someone else, driven by my own ‘need to network’.

So my intention, in this post, was to suggest that it is much more enlightening to think about the social network of people in your life, rather than about networking.  Your social network is the set of individuals who you are connected to - the people who are significant in your life. Your social network is the most amazing resource, providing tips, gossip, expertise, camaraderie, advice, humour, fantasy, entertainment, company, practical help, money, emotional support, a way to help others ... and a million other things that make life the social bundle that it is. And sadly, for some, the lack of a meaningful social network and/or network dysfunctions are the most profound causes of misery and stress.

The word networking is just not subtle enough to capture all the intricate ways in which our networks are configured, and reconfigured, nor to express the myriad of ways in which we can choose to interact with the people around us. Most of these interactions we do intuitively, without thinking about them, because it is in our human nature to do so.  In thinking and reading about networks I’ve come to appreciate that they can be constraining as well as empowering. Our networks are likely to ‘serve up’ people who are generally socially similar to us. (For more on this, I recommend Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler’s book Connected.) For creativity, that may be a bad thing. The goal of this blog is to offer ways to think deliberately about our networks, in order to fuel our creativity.

And so, ironically, networking - in the sense of building and sustaining a network - is exactly what this blog is all about. The more I thought about the word networking, the more I had to accept that deliberate, purposeful reflection about the people around us and how to interact with them is a valuable activity. I would like to qualify that, however, by saying that networking does not have to be purely self-interested. We also reach out to others for their benefit, rather than ours.

Another reason for my dislike of the word networking was that it has now become synonymous with the use of social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, Diigo, Digg,  Netvibes and LinkedIn. These are platforms that make it possible to share ideas, activities, events, and interests with people in your social network. They also make it possible to broadcast your thoughts, news, status or ideas to a much wider audience, as well as to tune into those of others.

Networking is both more and less than the use of social networking sites. More, because networking is done offline as well as online, and our online connections may be a poor representation of the people we really care about. Online social networking gives me a way to communicate efficiently with a globally distributed group of people, but it  is not how I choose to interact with to my family, dearest friends or closest collaborators. 

Less, because social networking sites connect people through ideas in a way that conventional networking (collecting business cards, getting introduced via acquaintances) cannot. I am still trying to understand the potential of social networking sites for deliberately and accidentally building our creative capacity through networks. I’m sure this will be the subject of future posts.

But all of this makes it clear to me that the word networking is not going away. But I would like to rename it ‘netshaping’ because that gives a sense of seeing a bigger picture, and shaping our networks accordingly. 

Here are some of the activities that I think might be incorporated within the term ‘netshaping’.

Activities that add contacts to our network

• Scanning - looking out for people who it might be useful to be connected to 
• Collecting - add people to our network as a result of making preliminary contact either virtually or face-to-face 
• Reacting -  responding to collecting or connecting approaches - deciding how to respond to the requests or suggestion from someone else
• Reaching - asking people we know to connect us to others

Activities that change the connections between people in our network

• Connecting - introducing two people in our network who don’t know each other (maybe in response to reaching by someone else, or as a result of mapping)
• Catalysing - effecting a change in the relationship between other people in our network (for example by encouraging them to start a conversation with each other)
• Mapping - studying the structure or shape of our network to decide where and how new connections could be made or new conversations started

Activities that contribute to the thinking of people in our network

• Firing - starting a private conversation to get people sharing ideas
• Fusing - adding people to a conversation 
• Broadcasting - inviting people in a network to contribute ideas on something
• Tuning - attending to the conversations that people in the network are broadcasting
• Digging - passing on ideas from one connection to another
• Moulding - refining, reframing or interpreting an idea for someone else
• Burying - closing down or choosing not to pass on ideas from one connection to another
• Resourcing - giving time to someone to help them develop ideas
• Recruiting - asking people to give time to help with the development of ideas 

Although this is just a playful list, I find it provokes some interesting questions. For example, how should I balance the time I spend scanning for new people to know, versus mapping to see how to work differently with the people I already know. When reacting to people approaching me, what steps might I apply to decide whether to follow up? It is pretty easy to broadcast, because that takes a manageable amount of time, but do I spend enough time tuning in to what others are broadcasting? Could I do better at digging, and how would I know whom to pass what ideas on to? Do I do too much digging; would the quality of what I forward to others be improved if I moulded it more before passing it on?

Thank you for tuning into this conversation. I would love to hear your thoughts on and additions to the ideas I have broadcast here. Feel free to dig or mould the ideas for the benefit of other people you know - and of course to bury them if you don’t think they have value. But if something here speaks to you, let me know and please fuse other people into the conversation. 

Why and how are networks important for creativity?

Most of us implicitly understand that ideas develop through social interaction. As Peter Semmelhack put it: "No idea exists in a vacuum. Ideas are social. The worst punishment for any idea, just like a human, is solitary confinement." He was citing a blog post by Venture Capitalist Blad Burnham, who has found in the VC world that entrepreneurs who are aggressively open in describing their plans seem to do better than those who are protective. 


But in this blog we are saying something more than "ideas are social". Our point is that social networks matter for ideas. Your social network is the primary determinant of the ideas you encounter, how you perceive and pursue opportunities and the ways in which you involve others in the development of your ideas. 


Why should this be the case? Let's first explain what we mean by your social network. It is the set of individuals around you and the connections (or ties) between them. A focus on connections is what  distinguishes a network view from other ways of thinking about the social world. The presence and absence of connections between people that you know create both opportunities and constraints. If everyone you share ideas with also shares ideas with each other, it's likely that your ideas will readily be accepted within your immediate social circle, but also you may not have access to many new ideas as the same ideas keep circulating. If few of the people you share ideas with also share ideas with each other, you may have access to a greater range of novel ideas, but also potentially more conflicting viewpoints.  


Be clear that a social network is distinct from social networking tools like Facebook and LinkedIn. These tools help you record, visualise and communicate with people in your social network, but whether or not you use these tools, you still have a social network. For example, here is a network visualisation of all the people I am connected to today on LinkedIn, created using InMaps. This is by no means everyone I am connected to professionally, but it does give a sense of what my professional network looks like, showing connections between the people I know. 

The first thing I did, on seeing this map, is reflect on how many different communities my network spans. At 10 and 11 o'clock are my work colleagues at Henley Business School and the University of Reading. At 7 and 8 o'clock are two distinct communities of academics researching in HRM and social networks, with a few individuals attempting (along with me) to connect the two communities. At 2 o'clock on the periphery are technology people I know through my research on plastic electronics and inside them is an emerging set of connections to professional creativity facilitators. 


So why do social networks matter for creativity? Because the patterns of connections between the people you know - the extent to which ties between them are present or absent - affects what ideas reach you, how you see and solve problems, what ideas you have the potential to create, and what you can do with those ideas. By studying our networks - and crucially the connections between people in our networks - we can learn how the structure of our networks creates and constrains opportunities for us, and we can start to design our networks in ways that increase our creative potential.


Let me illustrate this with reference to my own network. In my network there are lots of weak ties. Weak ties are connections to people you know but do not see frequently, and who generally have different acquaintances to you. Mark Granovetter in a famous paper argued that weak ties act as bridges between densely knit clumps of close friends, and that people with few weak ties would be deprived of novel information from distant parts of a social system. Strong ties (those that are emotionally close and frequent) are important for other reasons, but they may be associated with a degree of redundancy because within a tight-knit group, ways of thinking and ideas are more likely to be shared.  Jill Perry Smith's research has shown that weak ties are important for creativity. She argues that through exposure to non-redundant information, weak ties enhance creativity by making it easier to combine ideas from diverse perspectives and draw unusual connections. 


Since my network is spread across many distinct communities, in theory I should have access to lots of diverse ideas and non-redundant information ... and by extension that should help my creativity. Certainly, the concept of creative networks came about because I bridge a community of professionals interested in creativity and a community of academics interested in networks. So yes, the bridging nature of my network was responsible for this creative insight. But that is only part of the story. In the blog post mentioned earlier, Brad Burnham imagines that in an entrepreneur's network, there are people in an inner circle who understand the opportunity or technology well, who can help shape the opportunity. In the further reaches of a network more distant people may be useful for passing along useful information, but less likely to be able help translate that into useful insights. 


When putting ideas into action, I have a choice about which people in my network I think should be in my inner circle. So for developing and validating the idea of 'designing a creative network' and taking it forward, which of these two communities (creativity professionals and network academics) should I refer to? Whose success criteria will be in my mind? There are people in both communities who could help me develop the idea, but which individuals I choose to work with will determine how the idea moves forward from here. Should I write academic papers on creativity and networks, or should I design practical tools to help people understand and build their creative networks? There is perhaps the potential to do both, but there is considerable scope for role conflict along the way, not only because the two communities have very different expectations about what I might do with my ideas but also because they are largely socially disconnected so the likelihood of my connections aligning behind shared expectations of me is relatively remote. In the crucible that is required to develop and implement the idea, it may be that strong ties will be far more helpful to me than weak ties. 


By examining the structure of my network, I can surface both the opportunities within it, and its inherent tensions, enabling me to think creatively about how to resolve these tensions. So today's challenge is this: how might I make use of the different communities represented within my professional network to develop the idea of 'designing your ideal creative network'?