If you are starting or working in a network, you should use new mapping technologies to “see the whole”.  Knowing who is working in your field and their relationships is key for good strategy.  In a previous blog, I briefly introduced several mapping technologies.  Now I’ll give more details about one of the easier and quicker ways to map:  using web crawls.   They give a view of the structure of the “virtual (digital) world”, that is becoming an increasingly good description of “real world” relationships as the internet develops.

“Hyper-links” embedded in organizations’ web-sites that link to another organization’s site can be gathered through web crawls of internet sites.  A map such as in the diagrams below can then be generated to describe organizations’ virtual relationships.

I did this with the Global Organizational Learning and Development Network (GOLDEN), using the Issue Crawler developed by Richard Rogers at the University of Amsterdam.  The mapping was driven by the GOLDEN goals in terms of key stakeholder groups.  It aims to bring together leading academic research centers and businesses to spur attainment of sustainability.  The issue arena can be labeled “academic-corporate interactions for corporate sustainable responsibility (CSuR)”. The founders speak in terms of engaging 50 research centers and 250 corporations within a short time.  “Community organizing” is not framed as a goal, but it is an implicit activity to realize the goal.

Network Development Rule 1

Rule number one in initiating a network is to understand that someone is always already working in the issue arena…and to identify them if possible.  As in most cases, some of the leaders in the issue arena are among the founders of the new network—although they’re all academic CSuR leaders.  And as is also true in most cases in global networks, they are mainly older white men (like me!).  To realize a global network with all the complexions that implies for the issue, mapping can help enormously.

Issue crawls begin by identifying key URLs – referred to as “seed URLs” – relevant to your issue arena. In this case, I identified networks of organizations of two major stakeholder groups that are working CSuR.  First to note is that the issue arena is already quite crowded:  I identified 9 existing academic-business CSuR networks including ABIS, GRLI and UNPRME.  Also I identified 14 business CSuR networks including Business for Social Responsibility, the International Business Leaders Forum and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

Using these 23 seeds to conduct crawls produces data about URL connections and maps that display connections visually.  Some notes on “reading” the maps:

• Always remember you are looking at the virtual (digital) world of relationships.  Although it increasingly aligns with the real world, particularly for global issues, idiosyncrasies remain.  For example, educational institutions are much more reticent to link to external URLs than, for example, NGOs.  And some simply have much less developed web-sites in this regard…EABIS, for example, does not have outlinks;  GRLI has outlinks, but not for its institutional partners (but note that importance of a URL is suggested by inlinks –  links directed at it from other URLs).
• Nodes are sized according to the number of inlinks .
• Nodes’ relative locations are the product of their links and those of others in the network (nodes they are “closest to”).
• The maps here are all co-link ones which means they show nodes with two or more links in the network.  As well, they display the top 200 nodes’ links for the seed URLs (there are actually only 112-118 nodes in these maps, since some nodes have multiple links).
• In these maps I’ve color-coded the seed URLs for each map:  red for the academic-business networks, green for the business CSuR networks, and purple for multi-stakeholder networks (explained below).

In Map 1 (click on the map to enlarge) only eight of the seed URLs are among the top 200 nodes.  The map suggests two centers (clustering of big nodes):  one around intergovernmental organizations like the UN and World Bank, and another around multi-stakeholder networks, in particular the Global Compact and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).  This leads me to do additional runs that:

1. Exclude the IGOs…I perceive them as “background noise” that is masking the relationships in the issue arena I want to describe;  and
2. Include as seeds the URLs of multi-stakeholder networks’ (Global Action Networks’…GANs’) that are clearly working in the issue arena:  the Global Compact, the Principles for Responsible Investment, the Global Reporting Initiative and Transparency International.

Map 2 is a run excluding the IGOs.  It shows the business CSuR (green) nodes as central, the academic-business CSUR (red) seeds as fewer and more peripheral (suggesting the importance for them of their linkage to IGOs rather than business CSuR networks), and reinforces the idea that the GANs should be included because of their centrality and size.

Map 3 also includes the GANs as seeds (purple). We can see that there are more academic-business (red) and business CSuR (green) network seeds (10), which also supports the decision to include GANs and exclude IGOs.  The seeds for the business CSuR networks and GANs group, which would be expected as they tend to link to each other and the same organizations.

The Map 3 academic-business CSuR networks (red) are comparatively small, non-central and dispersed; three are really part of an educational grouping that suggests their orientation towards educational institutions is significant stronger than towards businesses (if they were balanced, you’d expect to see them with the GANs);  the two Asian ones are quite different with Asian associations.

Each of these maps is accompanied by several types of data-base outputs summarized in this excel spreadsheet.  For example, Columns B-C list all the nodes in the network (I set the maximum at 600 nodes) by inlinks;  another data output even gives lists by web-page, to identify locations/people within large organizations that are relevant.

In a run using snowball analysis (rather than co-link) the crawl retains URLs with at least one link from seeds.  Run with the three stakeholder groups, this produced a list of 5317 URLs (Column D).  And other maps show these by geography which more helps identify, for example, research centers in China. GOLDEN is particularly interested in particular geographies, like China.  More runs can be done for China in particular, and using Chinese-language web-sites.

Web Issue Hyper-Link Crawls and Strategy

So here are some ways all this work helps strategically.  It gives:

1. A feel for the domain structure…the “ecology” of relationships.  Who is dominant?  What are the groupings that are important to understand for success?  The maps help create a network perspective, by giving a visual association with the abstract “space” in which an initiative is working.
2. Strategic options…who to partner with and “reweave” the nodes so they can realize a network’s goals.  Everyone has their own “network” of relationships, but how do we broaden this perspective and who should we prioritize to engage?  GOLDEN’s founding academics obviously want to partner with corporations.  But should they do this by weaving together existing networks?  By going directly to corporations?  Some combination…and if so what?  The data bases are particularly helpful in identifying potential partners.  They include many education institutions and corporations and their linkages, to help identify who would likely be most interested in becoming involved in GOLDEN, and who would come with the richest network.  The snowball crawl, for example, identifies 5317 potential partners…although only a small fraction of these will be of interest to GOLDEN, it is a universe of options that is much more comprehensive than traditional snowball methods.  Should the IGOs be actively considered as partners?
3. Strategic clarity…what would you like the issue arena/map to look like after your intervention?  What are the “holes” in the map where relationships should be forged?  Today the map does not have “GOLDEN”;  what would the map look like in three years time if GOLDEN is successful?  This has an “impact evaluation” suggestion, thinking that GOLDEN’s inlinkage placement on the map in a few years can be one way of assessing its success.  As well, this helps guide questions about partnering priorities and web-site development.
4. Communications…who are the gatekeepers? Who should GOLDEN “get on board” to facilitate communications?  Naturally enough, many nodes concern communications.  This includes social media web-sites, publishing ones and traditional media ones.  This is very useful for development of a communications strategy.
5. Other…there is much useful information.  For example, maps show foundations and resource-organizations working in the issue, to help define a funding strategy.

Of all the benefits, however, perhaps the greatest is simply helping people to think more in network terms.  Although not as helpful in this regard as something like value network analysis, web crawls are a great step forward.  And of course if you’re interested in me helping you apply these types of analyses to your situation, email me!

My mind is full of thoughts about network start-up issues, since I’ve been asked to help develop a new global one that brings together academics and corporations for sustainability.  The experience illustrates four lessons about the exploration stage and initiation stage of the four network development stages.  Elements of those first two stages were combined into a “Step 1″ through the end of this year.

The lessons emerged last week at a first meeting in Milan with a luminary group of  about 20 academics.  It was organized by the indefatigable Maurizio Zollo who heads up the Center for Research in Organization and Management (CROMA) at Bocconi University, a leading European business school.

Lesson 1: Be passion-driven and work-focused

Happily both of the lead speakers who are known for their profound thinking spoke to these issues…the indomitable Simon Zadek and the quietly centered Ed Freeman.  Such people have lots of great choices about how to spend their time, and giving outlet for personal passion is required to engage the quality of leadership necessary to give life to an influential global network.

And you’ve got to know what you want to achieve.  The global academic-corporate sustainability field is extremely crowded:  the Global Compact (PRME), the Global Reporting Initiative, the Principles for Responsible Investment all have their own such networks;  as well, there are others such as the (formerly European) Academy of Business in Society and the Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative.

In this case, distinctive purpose was easily identified because of historic inter-personal ties for many present, participants’ own expertise in network development, and by the year of preparation led by Maurizio.  The group’s critique is that sustainability is being integrated into corporations much too slowly.  To change this, the group’s interest concerns (1) advancing knowledge about organizational learning and change towards sustainability, and (2)  actively supporting organizations’ transition towards their own model of sustainable enterprise.

The group coalesced around Step 1 of six months that will produce leading comprehensive case studies.  These will provide key insights as the basis for any future action.  (Click on photo of meeting participants and key to increase size).

Lesson 2:  Think “community-development”, not “governance structure”

I always get worried when people talk about “governance structure” in the abstract.  It should arise out of the need to support a community of people to do work and experience from doing the work.

Community development requires not just clear articulation of, and commitment to, the group goal, but also with respect to goals of distinctive stakeholder groups’ and individual participants’ goals.

In this case, community will be developed through interactions that produce the case studies, their analysis and definition of future action.  What’s needed structurally to do that work?  Nothing much.  There’ll be a call for proposals, networking to get the needed global complexion of research centers to respond, and organizing of an event to discuss the cases.

However, to optimize the potential for a successful Step 2 does require some more work.  There must be some community development work done with the proposal submitters, and infrastructure must be in place to immediately follow-up and support the outcomes of the next meeting.  I have participated in far too many “event-focused” initiatives, that have poured attention into organizing a meeting only to be insufficiently prepared to support the passion and ideas that arise out of it.  The result?  Dissipation of energy and lost opportunity.

For Step 1 CROMA will lead administration, and the key investors – ABIS, Bocconi and INSEAD – will form the organizing committee.

Lesson 3:  Use leading tools

I arrived on the scene a bit late, and the initiative could not make use of some of the tools that would have helped a lot.  In particular, significant energy was spent to identify research centers and corporations to participate in the initiative.  The approach was the classic “who do we know”, and building out from there.

One problem with this approach is that it is very labor-intensive.  Another is that it is necessarily limited by current connections…and often to produce the needed innovation requires going beyond these.  But perhaps the biggest problem is that this comes from a “building” approach that can badly alienate people, rather than a community-weaving approach.

This is a crowded issue field.  The project’s success requires “weaving together” current activities in new ways…the “building something new” approach of asking others to “join us” will inevitably provoke hostility from people who have been working in the field for some time and will say “why don’t you join us!”

Mapping using web crawls and social network analysis supports a weaving strategy, by heightening understanding of who is already working in the issue arena, their current relationships, and how to complement their activity.  As well, it can be much more economical and comprehensive.

Lesson 4:  Integrate reflection, learning and flexibility

These terms might be summarized with one word:  emergence.  That’s a key quality of networks successfully dealing with complex challenges.   Networks are complicated – there are lots of players, relationships, goals and activities.  However, change networks are also complex:  they don’t really know the “answer” to the challenge they are addressing, and what they should do.  What does a truly sustainable corporation really look like?  The network must stimulate questions and processes that produce an ever-more effective set of actions.

At the Milan meeting I heard people describe this more explicitly and with greater comfort than I’ve ever heard before.  I guess academics deal better with uncertainty than most (although their weakness is that they more often have trouble with taking impactful action).  The result?  They were fine throwing out the original proposal for Step 1, and totally redefining it around the case development process.

So one of my own learnings in this case is the value of having academics involved in these early stages of development.  Originally corporate-types were invited to them meeting, but they didn’t show up and that is probably just as well.  They would have been frustrated with the conceptual development discussions.  However, their presence at the next meeting with the cases is critical, for Step 2 to be successful.  This emphasizes the importance of developing the cases collaboratively with the corporations, and the value of meetings designed around what I call Action Learning Development.

In his follow-up email to the Milan participants, Maurizio commented “As an Italian saying goes, ‘the good day can be told from the early morning’.  Well, there could not have been a better early morning for the long and exciting day ahead of us.”  I agree!

We can easily be overwhelmed by the complexity of large networks where there are  many different organizations and people involved. Clearly “seeing” relationships between organizations, people, and key concepts is important for successful network strategies.

To vastly enhance and speed understanding of these relationships, I’ve worked with various forms of “mapping”.  Network maps are diagrams of lines or arrows (representing connections) and nodes (representing individuals, organizations, ideas) that can visually communicate tremendous amounts of information much more easily than volumes of text.  Here are some approaches I’ve found useful:

Web crawls

This approach maps and analyzes relationships between URLs.  This gives a picture of how organizations and issues are connected virtually that is increasingly important in any strategy.  Since URLs are usually associated with organizations, crawls quickly identify organizations working in a particular issue system.  The crawls maps links on one web-site to another webs-site.

Example: Working with a tool developed at the University of Amsterdam, we did crawls to identify networks in the global finance system for the Global Finance Initiative in order to identify key organizations and people to develop a change strategy.  Map 1 is of NGOs engaged in the global finance debate;  it suggests that surprisingly they do not have well defined relationships with perhaps the most influential players in global finance, including the Bank for International Settlements and the Financial Stability Board.

Map 1:  Web Crawl

(Click on map to enlarge view.)

Social/Organizational/Inter-Organizational network analysis (SNA/ONA/IONA)

This is classic social network analysis applied specifically to understanding relationships within and between organizations. The existence and relative importance of relationship, connections or communication flows between individuals and organizations is described by these approaches.

Example: When the Global Reporting Initiative considered its strategy for developing a South African network, we used social network analysis.  This produced Map 2, which shows distinct groups of organizations.  This emphasizes the importance of weaving the groups together, and the value of working with organizations that are well-connected in the groups.  Another product was a guide on how to initiate a network.

Map 2:  Inter-Organizational Social Network Analysis

(Click on map to enlarge view.)

Value Network Analysis (VNA)

Key roles and value outputs in an issue system are defined through VNA, helping to shift stakeholder mindset toward a network perspective beyond their usual organizational or institutional focus.   This approach has been developed by Verna Allee. It is available for immediate access and applied use at http://valuenetworks.com/.

Example: When the European Commission wanted to understand how to enhance the process of innovation, we applied VNA using the ValueNetworks.com application to produce a report with four archetypes (models) for moving from an academic idea to a product for a consumer, with important policy implications.  Verna emphasizes the importance of including both contracted tangible exchanges such as money, and intangible ones such as information.  This is illustrated in Map 3

Map 3:  VNA map of innovation

(Dashed lines are intangibles, solid lines are tangibles.  Click on map to enlarge.)

Strategic Clarity Mapping (SCM)

SCM generates a mutual understanding among diverse players’ of their respective strategies to address an issue – including their mental models about change strategies.  This approach has been developed by Jim Ritchie-Dunham of the Institute for Strategic Clarity.

Example: When CARE in Guatemala pondered the increasing poverty, despite its best efforts for many years, we used SCM to change the strategic relationships of CARE, and shift it from project-level to system-level strategies (from building wells to creating a system to build wells).  Map development is documented in a learning history I wrote.

Another examples is with Youth Employment and Sustainability (YES), a Global Action Network.  Institute for Strategic Clarity Vice President Luz Maria Puente worked with YES’ Latin American region, to support the region’s and the sub-countries planning.  It revealed both distinctions between the countries’ strategies to help them learn from one another, and identified weaknesses and strengths of their strategies.  Map 4 shows how Chile and Mexico develop entrepreneurial skills, so young people can start their own business, by providing them support through an incubator system.  This work with YES is described in a Working Paper just published today.

Map 4:  SCM Complex view of poverty

(Click on the map to enlarge.)

A key contribution of these mapping approaches is their ability to generate strategic discussions.  People can see links that they can question, and discuss how to strengthen them in a very strategic manner.  They identify key leverage points — points that will help “move” the entire system because of their connections to other points.

Web crawls are definitely the easiest to undertake.  SNA and VNA and SCM in particular are best developed collaboratively with system participants.  With this approach, even the SCM insights and outputs are well understood.  You can find a paper comparing these methods here. And join me for a free webinar March 17 to further explore these methods;  you can find more webinar information here.

If you were given 10 million euros and three to five years, how would you go about “changing the role of the financial system to better serve economic, social and environmental objectives”?  The EU is asking that question.  And that’s something that I’ve been answering with a consortium of more that 20 European universities. Our proposal went in last week.

For me, all this builds on the work of the Global Finance Initiative that I led.  Scaling Impact’s Sanjeev Khagram and I were convinced of the need for a multi-stakeholder Global Action Network (GAN) in the global finance arena that would take on the very issue the EU is asking with an EU focus.  Starting in January 2008 – just before the financial crisis and with $185,000 from Ford Foundation – we analyzed the global financial arena by further developing mapping methodologies and putting together a stewardship team that came up with a clear action strategy.

But we couldn’t get money for the next phase…because the financial crisis shrank foundations’ budgets and visions!

One exciting aspect about the EU Call is that they clearly want what I’d call a societal learning and change strategy…where financial system stakeholders will work together to (1) gain important new knowledge and perspectives that will change the way they think about the financial system, and (2) develop new social ties that provide for on-going development of new ideas, strategies, structures, and processes with regards to the financial system.

In other words, the goal of the Call is not simply to produce new reports, books and ideas…it’s about making sure the new knowledge is “held” by stakeholders and that they have the vision and relationships to further it.

The Proposal

The proposal to the EU was put together with leadership of the European Academy for Business in Society and Maurizio Zollo, Director of the Center for Research on Organization and Management at Bocconi University in Milan.  It proposes conventional research by an inter-university faculty to investigate from a multi-disciplinary perspective the historic financial system dynamics with comprehensive analysis of the reasons for the financial crisis.

But the project also proposes an action research strategy that includes:

1. Mapping social structures and developing a holistic computer model that simulates cross-system (finance-environment-social-economic-political) and cross-level (local-to-global) interdependences. This contrasts with the narrow product- and firm-level simulations used by finance that contributed to the financial crisis.
2. Engaging stakeholders. A stakeholder council will include financiers, policy makers, regulators and social-, labor-, consumer-, and environmental-activists working on finance issues.  With the researchers, the councillors will co-lead the project and engage their respective constituencies. This will be supported by an innovative social media strategy.
3. Scenario-building. Through stakeholder engagement with small focus groups around the world and larger European ones, plausible alternative futures will be developed.
4. Experimenting. Working with financial firms and other stakeholders, new approaches to such things as decision-making and product development will be tested.

Each of these four actions will further develop methodologies that will be very helpful to other network change strategies.

This approach, like the strategy proposed by the GFI, builds on the experience of GANs and the World Commission on Dams in particular.  The WCD was a 1997-2000 multi-stakeholder process to create comprehensive guidelines for the building of large dams in response to environmental and social disasters associated with large dams funded by the World Bank.  Although the diverse Commissioners reached consensus in a final report, it did not translate into agreement among the broader stakeholders‘ community, and responsibility for next steps was delegated to the UNEP that proved incapable administratively or authoritatively to effect pursuit of the Commission‘s work.

The response to the EU Call aims to overcome the WCD short-coming with its more comprehensive activities and explicitly creating stakeholder connections that can carry on the work.

How would you address the financial crisis as a large-system change challenge?