The Yahoo! group, ONA-prac, that we launched for the JumpStart Series (one session left!) has 98 members. We are beginning this as a classic community of practice, with (for now) a core team of four members and a commitment to being responsive to postings, keeping the conversation going, and collecting learnings as we go. This will transition at some point to another network form, but we’re not sure yet what that will be.

As ONA work is taken up by more and more organizational and KM practitioners, I am starting to find my focus, and that is in how understanding the essential structure of a network — its patterns — can help leaders decide how to manage it or how to transition it to another form. I’m calling this “Net Work,” with a central proposition that having the distinction of network structure leads to better performance of organizational networks, social and economic action networks, and client/partner relationships.

There are hints everywhere. I just came across an interview with Rob Cross in CSC World. Looking at a basic core/periphery pattern, and analyzing the roles of leaders, he says, “In healthy organizations, as people rise in the hierarchy, they move out to the edge of a network, not the center. Formally or informally, they do things that decrease other people’s reliance on them.”

This is a great principle for Net Work, and the work ahead for ONA-prac.