Written history is plagued with spin. Meta networks will create footprints of perspective, generating and preserving the most accurate approximation of world events.

Imagine that, honest media…

I wanted to share this blog post with you after reading (for the first time) some of your posts here at 100T.

I am quite certain you can relate.

Thanks
Tony Camero

http://launchyourlifeonline.blogspot.com/2009/05/web-between-our-ears.html

I think you’re right that “Connecting people” is really one major type of tool or method, so I edited the post to reflect that. However, I kept two main sub-types: a) connecting people to people, and b) connecting people to content, because (though there is some overlap) those are often for different kinds of needs, and also often require very different kinds of tools.

Re “best practices” losing value when copied. Yes, that’s bound to happen – but can of course be avoided by thinking carefully about what’s different. Simply copying a practice wholesale is usually a bad idea. In general people like to see how other people solved problems in order to simulate ideas for their own contexts, and also to find people they can actually talk to.

Your point about connecting people for innovation around a particular problem or opportunity is very important. Meta networks are natural places to do that, and for achieving great results and then spreading them. In meta networks there are powerful shared goals plus concentrated expertise around particular groups of problems and goals. And there is also rich diversity of perspectives and experiences that is ripe for bringing together to come up with new solutions.

As I read it over, the first two words of the first three points stand out as a point in an of themselves: Connecting People.

In particular, connecting people to what they care about, to what they see as possible and to what constitutes effective collective action.

It has been my experience that among people who share many of the same values and aspirations there is often a lack of ability to coordinate meaningful action due to a lack of establishing shared meaning and failure to explore a range of possibilities before attempting to move into action.

A second item that comes to mind is triggered by the presence of “best practices” in the list. Best practices are always context specific and often in being copied they lose much of what made them “best” to begin with.

I’d suggest that in meta-networks a more powerful approach would be to connect people to people who are capable of bringing marginal practices into new situations in order to stimulate innovation.

But it’s not really an outlandish leap. It’s almost a given that experiences change our nervous systems. So I liked using the analogy of use of tools changing the “body map” to imply that use of collective intelligence experiences is changing our “self map.” That is, to suggest that as collective intelligence increases, our currently bounded selves will keep expanding, and more and more of the “whole” (systems, humanity, planet, etc.) will be much more part of who we are, as a self, and as a whole.