Laurie Lock Lee, of Optimice in Australia, has been a terrific source of insight for me over the past several years. He recently published a great white paper, The 3 E’s of Innovation.
In this paper, he neatly summarizes (in good lay person terms) the social network theories of closure (a tightly connected network) and structural holes (people in good position to link closed networks), and shows the structural evolution of a network as ideas are Explored, management is Engaged to support the innovation and Exploited in creating real products from ideas.

This has given me the idea of starting a list of “ONA Classics,” articles that are well written for general (read: management) audiences, introduce social/organizational network terminology in a meaningful context, and illustrate the concepts with simple but powerful maps. I’ll need to mull over my collection to see what else qualifies as a classic, but there is at least this one: Building Smart Communities through Network Weaving
by Valdis Krebs and June Holley. This paper describes the transformation in network patterns as networks emerge and are guided toward connectivity.

Please let me know your suggestions for classics!