I came across two gems this past week, I forget what I was looking for, but found a wonderful video of Ron Burt, whose work on structural holes is one of the cornerstones of social network analysis. Burt’s writing is pretty dense and very technical, so I was delighted by the accessibility of his explanations in his talk on”Collaborate to Innovate: A brief note on the social origins of good ideas” at a Nesta (National Endowment for Science, Technology, and the Arts in the UK). He brings life to the distinctions between the roles of people who bring ideas from the outside vice those who try to keep things focused on the inside.

The second is an audio of Karen Stephenson’s talk at MeshForum last year. It’s newly posted, on ITConversations. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to track down the slide presentation that she was speaking to, but there are some terrific nuggets from a person who as been doing organizational network analysis professionally longer than most of us.

In both instances, it’s nice to see their personalities come through.

btw (1). Karen is offering a certification program in NetForm Social Network Analysis through the Organization Development Network. I probably shouldn’t advertise the competition (as I do training in ONA myself), but I think it’s great to see a large national organization be so interested in bringing competency in ONA into their repertoire.

btw(2). The next MeshForum is May 7, inSan Francisco. I haven’t been able to attend any of these, but the content — all shared on the MeshForum site — is excellent. Shannon Clark is a great connector of multidisciplinary ideas and threads. This year, the 2nd day of MeshForum will be in the Open Space format. It should be wonderful.