Network Models

1. Network science is based on graph theory, which was first conceived by Leonhard Euler. Euler developed it as a tool to solve the Konigsberg bridges challenge.
2. Random network theory, developed by Erdos and Renyi, mathematically proves that in any group it requires on average 1 link per person to make the entire group fully connected.
3. The clustered network model developed by Watts and Strogatz shows how the introduction of a few long-range links (weak ties) makes every network a small world (characterized by a small degree of separation).
4. The power law distribution of scale-free networks proves the existence of hubs – several highly connected nodes, such as the influencers in the online world.

Network Qualities

1. Clustering coefficient determines the level of interconnectedness of a network or a network’s module.
2. The degree exponent on a scale-free network tells us how many hubs (popular nodes) there are relative to the other (less popular) nodes.
3. Growth and preferential attachment are the conditions that create scale-free networks.
4. Fitness model describes how a recently new node can turn very popular (become a hub).
5. The fitness distribution can lead to two types of behavior: fit-get-rich, or winner-takes-all.

Network Applications

1. When it comes to finding a job, launching a business, or spreading the latest fad, our weak social ties are more important than strong ties (such as between friends or family).
2. Most of the real, complex networks (such as the Internet, the Web, human cell, society, etc.) are characterized by power law distribution, and therefore are best described by the scale-free model.
3. Scale-free networks are topologically robust, meaning that they have high error tolerance. However, this same topology results also in high vulnerability to attacks, as eliminating the hubs quickly breaks the whole network apart.
4. Cascading failures can quickly affect the whole network. This can be visible for example in spreading of epidemics, computer viruses, or in financial crises.
5. The adoption of innovations depends on the behavior of opinion leaders (the influencers, or hubs in the social network), spreading rate, and the critical threshold, which can be described in terms of network theory.
6. To effectively stop spreading a contagious disease, we should first target the hubs – highly connected individuals.

This list is only a selection of hundreds of knowledge gems, for more of them I recommend you read Linked!

Dee Hock formed Visa on the basis of applying chaord to business, and as a means of managing it, he took a deeper look into the concept of leadership. His argument was that the relationship between leader and follower should be based on induced behavior, in contrast to compelled behavior that was (and still remains) standard in most formal organizations. Followers should show initiative by choosing where they want to be led, and leaders should act in accordance with the sense of the community – the beliefs, purpose, and values of their followers.

Following are the responsibilities of managers, in the order of importance:

1. Manage yourself – your own integrity, character, emotions, knowledge, skills, and acts. This should occupy 50% of your time.
2. Manage your superiors – ensure their consent and support to your actions. Devote 25% of your time for this task.
3. Manage your peers (environment) – gain their respect and confidence, to ensure good relationships and collaboration. Devote 20% of your time for this.
4. Manage your subordinates – this is least important in the job of a manager. If your subordinates follow the same principles, managing themselves, you – their superior, and their peers, it is sufficient to devote 5% of your time to managing them.

As the concept of chaord perfectly applies to the world of online social networks, we can try to translate Dee Hock’s leadership principles into this framework. Let’s say you have a great idea that could save the environment if adopted by a sufficient number of people, how would you go about promoting it?

1. Build credibility. This corresponds to managing yourself, and should occupy 50% of your time. In this time, you should work on your ideas, polish them, package in quality content like blog posts, articles, podcasts. You can read here about more ways to build your credibility on the Web.
2. Influence the influencers. You should devote 25% of your time to this task, which is counterpart to managing your superiors. The influencers are the primary reason certain ideas spread on the web, they have the power to bring your message to the attention of thousands of people. Without their support, your project will only be known to few people who won’t be able to pass the message further.
3. Build your network. Your network consists of your peers, and you should devote 20% of your time to growing and maintaining it. A broad and active network will help you build credibility, come up with new and creative ideas, execute your project, and get support from the influencers.
4. Influence your followers. Finally, you don’t need to spend more than 5% of your time focusing on the followers. If you have already built the credibility by coming up with great and sticky ideas, if you have spread the word via the online gurus, and if you have a vibrant network of collaborators, the people will come to follow you.

Now, where do you actually focus your time and energy? Do you follow the priorities of chaordic leadership?

Source: Hock, Dee “The Art of Chaordic Leadership” Leader to Leader. 15 (Winter 2000): 20-26.

• Tribes. According to Seth, tribes are groups of people that share a common interest and have a way to communicate. While most of the leaders leverage the tribe so that it can grow and gain new members, effective leaders transform the shared interest into a passionate goal and desire for change, and provide tools to improve the communication between tribe members and the leader.
• Movements. Seth quotes Bill Bradley’s definition of a movement that contains three elements: a narrative that tells a story about the group and the future it’s trying to build; a connection between and among the leader and the tribe; and something to do. Only focusing on something to do is not enough.
• Tightness. A leader can improve her tribe on two dimensions – its size and its tightness. While most leaders focus on size, sometimes a smaller but tighter tribe works better. There can be many strategies for tightening a tribe, like creating rituals, introducing people to one another, and providing a communications platform for tribe members.
• Motivation. You can’t become an effective leader when you focus on your benefits. Great leaders focus on the followers and get their compensation from watching the tribe thrive.
• Creating a Micromovement. Seth shares a step-by-step approach of creating an online micromovement:

1. Publish a manifesto
2. Allow followers to contact you
3. Allow followers to contact one another
4. Realize that money is not the point of a movement
5. Track progress

• Elements of Leadership. Challenge the status quo. Create a culture around your goal and involve others in that culture. Be curious. Use charisma. Communicate your vision of the future. Commit to a vision and make decision based on that commitment. Connect your followers to one another.
• Positive Deviants. This is the best story I found in this book. Jerry Sternin decided to help starving Vietnamese children. He didn’t send any food to Vietnam though, he didn’t educate the local people either. Instead, he looked for families that were not starving, who learned to thrive in that environment. He told them how special they were, and asked to share their insights and methods with the wider community. These families were positive deviants. Such people are the key to success of any tribe or organization, as they bring a change for better, they challenge and improve the status quo.

If you follow this blog and are interested in the topic, I really recommend you read Tribes, or listen to the free (thanks Seth!) audio version.

Influencers – People that change mindsets of their followers. They can be bloggers reviewing the latest gadget, lifehackers proposing the new approach to time management, or connectors suggesting you link up with some of their online friends.

Leaders – Influencers that also make a call for action. Leaders aren’t satisfied when you change your opinion about a product, they want you to buy it. They’re not satisfied with your interest in the lifehack, they want you to implement it. They want you to get in touch with their other friends and start a business together. And if they are true leaders, you do what they want, as it’s the best thing for you to do.

Managers – People that organize online collaboration. They may not be as visible and popular as leaders or influencers, but without them no complex effort can be undertaken online. Some of them are famous – take for example Linus Torvalds who has designed the Linux operating system in a way that allows thousands of contributors to extend and improve it. Implicitly, he has created a management framework to organize the collaboration of software developers around his product.

Where do you fit on this taxonomy – are you an influencer, a leader, or a manager? Or maybe all of them at the same time?

Muhammad Yunus

Muhammad Yunus is a great leader. He has created an organization which challenged the status quo that sentenced millions of Bangladeshi people to famine and helped them to manage themselves out of poverty. He has inspired thousands of people to follow his model of microcredit to decrease poverty in many developing nations. He has engaged a multinational corporation to invest in social business and sacrifice part of its profit to increase the well being of poor children.

After reading Muhammad Yunus’ book – Creating the World Without Poverty – I believe that there are three traits that have made him such a fantastic leader. His leadership comes from vision, passion, and trust.

1. Vision. Many people care about poverty, but few have ideas to actually eliminate it. And Muhammad Yunus is one of the most notable innovators in this area. He has started the microcredit movement as the famous banker to the poor. He has come up with the notion of social business and proved the concept in numerous enterprises, including telecom company serving remote villages in the rural Bangladesh and modern eyecare hospitals. Last but not least, he still continues to produce ideas for fighting the world’s poverty, in areas ranging from information technology to social and political movements.
2. Passion. It is a necessary quality to continue following your vision in the early stages, when there is still no evidence that would convince the critical mass of people that it’s the right way to go. When all banks had turned down his proposals to offer microcredits to the poor, Muhammad Yunus withdrew his own savings to realize the idea. He passed on his passion first to a small group of students, then local officials, then social entrepreneurs around the world, and finally even to the management of a multinational corporation.
3. Trust. There were hundreds of visionary and passionate people opposing poverty before him, but banker to the poor was the first one who actually placed trust in the poor. He challenged the assumption of poor people not being creditworthy, and offered credit to them that was warranted by a simple handshake. He believed the poor are just as creative, hardworking and talented as the rich, and by giving them means to do it, they will be able to manage themselves out of poverty. Moreover, he transferred the ownership of the business he works for – Grameen Bank – to the poor borrowers, trusting them so much as to become their employee. Trust is the brightest quality making Muhammad Yunus an exceptional leader – it has triggered millions of poor people to assume personal leadership for their own success.

Muhammad – if you ever read this article, congratulations on your great success eliminating poverty and thank you for the inspiration!

Photo credit: Yodel Anecdotal

First of all, Muhammad Yunus presents his vision of the social business. It is a powerful idea based on challenging the assumption of one-dimensional human beings that aim at maximizing profit. This concept lies at the core of established economic theories, and supports the current notion of the business that should maximize value for its shareholders. The social business is totally dedicated to solving social or environmental problems. It is different from charities or NGO’s as it does not generate losses, and it’s different from profit-maximizing businesses as it does not pay dividend.

Furthermore, the author gives an account of real social businesses that he has created. It starts with Grameen Bank, the microcredit organization providing banking services to the poor people from Bangladesh, including beggars. Grameen Bank is a huge success story, and its model has been reapplied in numerous countries. Another example is Grameen-Danone yoghurt factory that aims at improving the diet of poor Bangladeshi children. It’s been recently opened as a joint venture between the Danone corporation and Grameen Bank, and it follows the social business model as described by Yunus.

Finally, the reader is confronted with a vision of the world where poverty can only be seen in museums. I would compare this part of the book to a manifesto that describes the building blocks of a new world where social business can flourish, the environmental problems are resolved by mutual consensus between nations, and the information and communication technologies help the developing nations to participate in and benefit from the globalized market.

It is important to note what you should not expect from this book. It definitely isn’t an instruction, or a how-to guide for creating a social business. It isn’t a science book either – instead of presenting sound models and theories, the author focuses on his vision and experience, and the book is an account of real-life stories and examples.

The value of Creating a World Without Poverty lies in the inspiration it provides, in fascinating real-life examples of the author’s journey to eliminate poverty in his country. It may sometimes sound like a science-fiction vision, but the example of Grameen Bank shows that nothing described in this book is impossible. It’s a must-read.

Today is Blog Action Day and thousands of bloggers write about poverty. I would like to ask you to stop for a moment and think of your poor (grand-) grandfather. If none of your grandparents suffered from poverty, think of another poor relative (and for sure you will find one if you track down the history of your family).

My grandfather suffered extreme poverty during the time of World War II. He was five years old when the war started in Poland in 1939. Together with his parents, four brothers, and a sister, they lived on a small farm in Dulcza Wielka. The house was burnt to ashes by the German troops as they marched through the village, and the family had to separate in order to survive. My grandfather, his sister, and their mother went on to another village, where they begged for shelter and food. They were extremely hungry, and my grandfather was close to death from malnutrition. He was saved by a Russian soldier who saw the dying child and took him to a mobile army hospital, where he was treated.

After the war ended, the family of my grandfather reunited and came back to the farm. They had to rebuild the house, and replant the land, which was another period of poverty and hunger. Slowly, the land started to yield crop and the family managed themselves out of poverty.

Now, as you think of your own grandfather, grand-grandfather, or another family member, it is likely you will find a similar pattern. Poverty has nothing to do with character, mindset or capabilities; but it is linked to external conditions. Millions of people in different parts of the world that are close to starvation are just as capable to earn their living as you or me. They are forced into poverty by the circumstances, such as war, drought, land ownership, lack of financing opportunities and many more. By changing these conditions, we can help the poor manage themselves out of poverty, similar to what my grandfather and his family had done.

How can we address the conditions contributing to poverty? Following are just a couple of examples.

1. Microcredit. Lend money to entrepreneurs in the developing world and empower them to lift themselves out of poverty, for example via Kiva.
2. Social Business. Invest in business that is totally dedicated to solving social or environmental problems. For more information about social business, you may read the book by Muhammad Yunus.
3. Education. Support initiatives with the goal of educating the poor, as lack of education is one of the major conditions creating poverty. You can find an educational project that can benefit from your support via GlobalGiving.
4. Fair Trade. Allow the producers in the developing regions to get a fair share of the profits. Look for products that have fair trade labeling and reduce poverty with your trolley.
5. Open Source. Contribute to the open source movement and make software, media, and education accessible also to those that cannot pay the license fee.

What are your examples of initiatives addressing the circumstances that create poverty?

As this subject is very close to my heart – I’m pursuing research via this blog, even though I don’t have a formal affiliation with any of the scientific institutions – I’d like to delve deeper into what I consider as open source science.

Definition

Open Source Science represents an approach to conduct research in a collaborative and open manner.

Characteristics

1. Open collaboration. Scientific projects are visible to the entire scientific community and open for contributions from experts, independent of their organizational affiliation.
2. Expertise-based mentorship. Senior researchers spend some of their time coaching and advising junior researchers in the area of their expertise, independent of their organizational affiliation.
3. Open content publishing. Research results are published free of charge.
4. Immediate visibility. Research results are published immediately, including work in progress.
5. Online peer review. Research quality is maintained via online peer review.

Benefits

1. Speed. Scientific progress will be achieved faster: the best experts will collaborate openly on the same research objectives; online scientific debate and peer-review will provide immediate feedback and quality assurance; and open and immediate content publishing will make the results immediately actionable for the industry.
2. Quality. Similarly to open source software development process, open collaboration will ensure comparable or better quality than traditional research.
3. Social Justice. Open Source Science will allow researchers from underdeveloped regions to participate in global research with equal rights.

Vision

Open source science will not replace current, traditional research structures. Definitely it will not be mainstream in investment-heavy research areas, such as pharmaceuticals or physics. However, it may grow to account for a high percentage of scientific deliverables in areas such as computer science, philosophy, mathematics, literature or linguistics.

As open source science starts to grow, we’re likely to observe new communities and tools that will leverage this trend. They will support collaboration on projects, peer review process, and content publishing. But open sourcing science can already start with the tools available now, such as social networks, blogs and collaboration tools.

What is your perspective on open source science? Can you already share some examples of this movement?

Authentic leaders behave naturally, in ways that fit their personality. They nurture long-lasting relationships; they have mastered self-discipline and self-awareness. Striving to achieve desired goals, they stick to their values and principles.

According to the study, becoming an authentic leader requires that we first interpret our life story. It is important to consider the people and experiences that shaped our character in the early life stages. By practicing self-awareness, we should understand the real values and principles that guide our decisions, and the factors – both internal and external – that motivate us. An authentic leader can count on a diverse support group, which may consist of a partner, family, and friends. Authentic leaders prove their integrity when facing difficult choices, even if the correct decision may negatively affect their career.

I would risk the statement that in online communities, it is even more important for a leader to be authentic. Such authenticity is a source of referent power, the biggest influencing force that allows a leader to drive the community effort in desired direction. In each place where you show up online, whether it’s in a blog, a social network, or an online forum, you can build trust via integrity or lose trust via acting against community values. And as always, it’s much easier to lose trust than it is to build it.

What do you do to stay authentic on the web? I’d love to see your point of view in the comments!

Source: William W. George, Peter Sims, Andrew N. McLean, David Mayer, and Diana Mayer: Discovering Your Authentic Leadership; Harvard Business Review; February 2007.

I had started this blog as a journal to document my personal research, hold me accountable and share my research findings. I wanted to be professional about it, so I looked for professional blogging advice, such as from Problogger or Chris Brogan. I started the habit of checking my stats, and following diverse advice on increasing traffic.

Recently, traffic has become so important to me, that my focus shifted from following my purpose to writing posts that could become popular and increase the readership of my blog. You could say that our objectives may change, but when I deeply thought about it, it still does not matter to me as much as my core objective of pursuing and documenting research.

My plan to get out of this popularity trap is to define principles that should be the foundation for this blog. My blog posts should be clear, concise, and serve the purpose of documenting, sharing and facilitating discussion on my research.

Are you falling in the popularity trap as well? What are your ways to get out of it?