Constant Communication

From Martin Raymond's, The Trend Forcaster's Handbook I have learnt the importance of communicating constantly with your network, on a regular basis to encourage their enthusiasm and constant response back. So throughout my different networks I have infiltrated and created I have tried to keep constant updates, feedback and asked questions and opinions on a regular basis.

Ensuring a Diverse Network

A Network in organic and ongoing, you need to invite members on a regular basis and rather than populate your network with like minded people avoid Mr and Mrs Average. Invite people who are from fields of sectors which radically differ from existing members, encourage innovators who develop new thoughts. There are some key points to enable a strong diverse network:

1. With a mission statement, to sum up the reason for your networks existence. 
2. List the fields related to this issue that you would like to address.
3. Use this list to identify the type of people you want to approach.
4. Exclude friends as they tend to have similar opinions to you, use them to identify friends of friends and develop your weak-ties.
5. Once the initial membership has been created, create online profiles to establish what you are and what you are after.
6. Include examples of what you are after linking this to special-interest groups.
7. Visit bars, clubs, stores, streets and neighbourhoods. Hand out flyers containing details of your network and its mission.
8. Create an ideal list, to explain what it takes to be a network member and why you are collaborating with these different people.
9. 
   
10. Recrute members you are keen to attract, give an attractive tittle with positive characteristics so that people are keen to exhibit. Like when recruiting for a job, make them feel proud that they have these.
11. Avoid alienating phrases that suggest you are being judgemental towards the differences you are trying to nurture.
12. Be collaborative and constant in your communication with your network, speaking to them on a regular basis and that all network discoveries are shared equally, fairly and with enthusiasm. 

Raymond Martin, 2010. Trend Forecaster's Handbook. Edition. Laurence King Publishers.

80/20

The '80/20' principle is also known as the 'Pareto Principle'. Vilfredo Pareto discovered that during the early part of the last century that 80 per cent of all land in Italy was owned by 20 per cent of the population. This pattern occurred also in how people worked, generated ideas and owned wealth. This pattern of the minority having or doing the majority follows in industrial categories and social activities. Networks follow this pattern; 20 per cent of members are responsible for 80 per cent of the generated ideas. The diagram depicts this 20 per cent of people put something in and get 80 per cent of the results. This pattern results in 'super-nodes' or 'clusters' as the 20 per cent become more visible through their generated ideas, they are then sourced by others to boost there own power through connections. Super-nodes become power networks in their own right and are used by brands and business to gain information. 

When developing my networks it would be a good idea as well as creating diverse weak-ties to attempt to source super-nodes or clusters.

Image: The 80/20 Rule of Social Media Tracking. 2011. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.techaffect.com/2011/05/11/the-8020-rule-of-social-media-tracking/. [Accessed 09 February 2012].

Diversity

The more diverse (hetrophilous) you make your network the greater the network will become in terms of diversity that flows through it. Your weak-ties should come from all paths of life, different countries, cities, sexuality, gender, class, intellect etc. This is to avoid groupthink which is how friends, associates and networks who know each other intimately begin to think alike; this limits their capacity to explore alternative attitude, views and ideas. 

When creating my networks I need to develop strong weak-ties with a high level of diversity in order to optimise performance and output. 

Image: John Flood's Random Academic Thoughts (RATs): Diversity in the Legal Profession?. 2012. [ONLINE] Available at:http://johnflood.blogspot.com/2010/09/diversity-in-legal-profession.html. [Accessed 09 February 2012].

The Benefits of a Network

Networks in basic form are individuals with a mutual interest that come together to change ideas, products or services. Networks use the collaborative potential of a whole crowd of brains working together as a single organism to determine an outcome, they harness the power of many 'the wisdom of crowds'. In network diagrams (as previously show) people are drawn as nodes, the more nodes the more information and the more powerful a network becomes. The individuals within a network may not be wholly correct but the sum total of a group will always bring you closer to the correct answer. For example in Who Wants to be a Millionaire when asking a friend 61 per cent of contestants get the correct answer but when asking the audience 91 per cent get the correct resulting answer. If harnessed correctly networks can be used to extract more accurate answers from people working collectively rather than individually, even if they are not known to each other. In fact the less individuals know each other the more beneficial they are to your network.

Raymond Martin, 2010. Trend Forecaster's Handbook. Edition. Laurence King Publishers.

Book Cutting

This cutting from The Trend Forecaster's Handbook reinforces the value of a network, and how the effect it creates is ever expanding:

Image: Raymond Martin, 2010. Trend Forecaster's Handbook. Edition. Laurence King Publishers.