On a discussion group, someone remarked, "Our problem at work is that we don't have a social network yet."

Wow. ALL human organization is a social network. You can never not have a social network! (?)

This is what anthropologists, sociologists, scientist and (some) practitioners know. Social networks are omnipresent, pervasive and the foundation of all human existence. Always have been always will be. They are the foundational logic of ALL organizations, markets, ecosystems and civil society. The social network is the unit of analysis.

Note: it’s possible the person meant a social networking application. These services have nothing to do with social networks or SNA. These applications are called social for marketing purposes. Social networks and SNA do not depend or are even related to the so-called social networking applications like dating services or alumni applications.

Breakthrough Social Media?

The rush to call everything social bears the question, “Do you call your telephone a social network voice device?” Are letters and envelopes “cellulose-based social media?” It’s getting ridiculous.

The crushing irony of all this nonsense is that in personal life people are highly aware of their social networks. They compose, nurture, protect and serve them with alacrity. The simple proposition is to move these essential behaviors into the workplace.

Oddly, it is only when people cross the threshold of ‘work’ that the absolute foundation of all human activity, social networks, magically disappears. This is a direct throwback to Fordism – the deliberate elimination of skilled labor in favor of mindless automata. It is very bizarre and pathological.

Fordism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordism

Rejecting social networks and analysis is a classic anti-pattern. Its why event the most rudimentary social graphs have such a profound effect in reenergizing and remediation organizational activities.

Anti-pattern: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antipattern#Organizational_anti-patterns

On the contrary, people inhabit many social networks at work. Your work is a social network. The point is to use powerful techniques to identify, comprehend, optimize and serve your networks better.

For example, there are a lot of community-of-practice (CoP) practitioners and participants in organizations. Often, they are highly dismissive of the underlying structure of organizations, social networks and SNA.

For CoP leaders, please, the next time you go to your doctor with an ailment, for a checkup, for low energy, or if you have surgery, kindly ask the doctor or surgeon you prefer she use no visualization technologies like x-ray or MRI. Tell her, please do not use lab analytics or blood workups. No diagnostics either. Say please doctor, no arthroscopy, laparoscopy or stethoscope for me. If she says sphygmomanometer to measure your blood pressure, you say, ‘no way.’

Instead, like today’s CoP authorities, say you much prefer a far more Victorian-era approach. Contemporary CoP people behave like Victorian-era doctors. There is a  ton of CoP quackery. Just tell your doctor you want bleeding, plastering, purging, sweating, blistering, and, above all, amputation.

This is tantamount to the rejection of known, basic social network visualization,  analytics and common network structures and properties of communities.

Meanwhile, remember, SNA is comprehensive organizational tomography. It’s the ICU for dysfunctional orgs. Like the social networks that comprise your organization, it is there, waiting and ready when you are.

Network visualization and analytics allows deliberate nurturing and optimization of networks. The outcomes are emergence and mutation of new entirely new, more productive organizational forms, including CoPs. Network theory and SNA establishes high-performance organizations, sustaining innovative ecosystems and long-term prosperity.