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!

The most exciting approach to strategic planning for networks that I’ve heard of is underway at the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF).  That’s the organization supporting development of Wikipedia and nine other aligned projects with the vision of a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge.

The distinctive structural element of the Wikimedia community is that it is organized around language groups. All told, there are 700 language-specific sites across 10 projects (Wikipedia is one). Millions of international volunteers contribute to these projects, about 100,000 actively.

Eugene Eric Kim of Blue Oxen Associates is leading the Foundation’s planning process.  Kim has been active in the wiki community since 2002. WMF launched the planning process last July with a 2010-2015 focus and two major concerns.  One is that community participation has tailed off and even started to decline.  And the second is simply to strengthen the ability to realize the vision. Kim explains that Wikimedia is “…only reaching about 15 percent of the world, fewer than 35% of US people on line in US have ever accessed it.”

Wikimedia founder Jimmy Wales announced the project last August with his “State of the Wiki” speech at the annual Wikimania Conference, held in Buenos Aires with over 400 Wikimedians.  This and all other information on the planning initiative are available through a nice, simple web-page.  There are four phases:  Level-Setting, Deep Dives (both completed), Synthesis and Business Planning/Call to Action (both underway).

Five Asks for Network Participants

But I like the way Kim describes the project in terms of five “asks”:  “the roles we want (Wikimedians) to play.  It is important to figure it out up front.”   These are sequential:

1. Brainstorming with a call for proposals.  This ask is designed to get people engaged and to listen to the community.  Over 800 proposals were received.
2. Over 2-1/2 months, getting people to look at specific topics arising from the proposals and research, and coming up with specific recommendations.
3. Asking Wikimedians to review the recommendations and refine them into draft goals.
4. Collectively looking at the draft goals and how to realize them with an action plan.
5. Implementing the action plan.

I’m always a bit cautious about “strategic planning” when framed as “creating the plan” followed by “implementing the plan”.  I think it was planning guru Henry Mintzberg who said the important thing is the process and focus upon the vision and goals, and that once it was “written” it should be thrown away.  Instead, think of planning as an active verb that is an on-going cycle of action-assessing-planning.

But I really like Kim’s emphasis on this process as building the capacity of the Wikimedian community to think and act strategically.  As he says, the whole concept of “strategic planning” means so many different things to different people. WMF boiled it down to two questions: “Where are we now?“, “Where should we go?”

Good participation with representative viewpoints is a key concern.  “Ideally we would have one person from each of the 700 Wikimedia projects,” Kim says.  About 1% of the 100,000 wikimedians are responsible for 50% of the content, and in the planning they’ve had up to 80 people very engaged in different activities.   So the active participants are not numerous.  However, the process has emphasized transparency and there are many more participants following along.  As well, to ensure the inclusion of diverse perspectives the process has included interviews and other research.

The planning is supported by a team that includes consultants from the Bridgespan Group and WMF staff as well as Kim.  Transparency was one of the big contentious issues in the process.  Everyone supports being transparent, but there were different views about how much to share and when.  Should differences within the support team be part of the on-line discussion?  When does information become distracting and confusing as opposed edifying and helpful?

Of course this planning approach is possible in part because the community already has an on-line culture.  The Wikimedia tools were used extensively;  Kim notes that they are not always the best technologically for a particular function, but they work for the community.

By the end of April the process will have completed the Synthesis; the business Plan/Call to Action will be completed by July, in time for presentation to Wikimania 2010 in Gadansk, Poland.

How does this compare with your planning approach?

Scenario development is a leading tool for moving large, seemingly intractable issues…and particularly useful for large change networks.  I have revisited the progress of the methodology over the last couple of months with the guidance of Rafael Ramirez at the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society (InSIS) of the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School.

Rafael is lead editor of a new version of the business bible on scenario development – Business Planning for Turbulent Times.  The concept of “turbulence” is one highly relevant to Global Action Networks…indeed, it may be said that they are structures to manage turbulence:  when “the shared ‘common good’ is in motion.”  That is to say when there are profound shifts in organizations’ operating environments that are associated with changing technologies and power relationships as are occurring with globalization and unprecedented pressures upon the natural environment.

Shell’s 1970’s scenario planning for the companies’ business planning is usually cited as the first large-scale use of scenario development.  The process produces plausible futures – stories about futures how they can be realized.  Ramirez emphasizes the importance of futures that are both possible and uncomfortable, in order for people to move past stuck positions and think creatively.

If you have marveled at the peaceful transition to post-apartheid South Africa, you should know that scenario development had an important role. Over 1991-92 Adam Kahane, at the time with Shell, led development of the Mont Fleur scenarios with a group of 22 diverse South Africans at the Mount Fleur conference center outside of Cape Town.  The four scenarios developed were named with bird themes to give them life:

1. Ostrich — in which a negotiated settlement to the crisis in South Africa is not achieved, and the government continues to be non-representative.
2. Lame Duck — in which a settlement is achieved but the transition to a new dispensation is slow and indecisive.
3. Icarus — in which transition is rapid but the new government unwisely pursues unsustainable, populist economic policies.
4. Flight of the Flamingos — in which the government’s policies are sustainable and country takes a path of inclusive growth and democracy.”

The scenarios were distributed through national newspapers and presented to 50 groups.  This produced conversations that contributed to building a common vocabulary and mutual understanding about choices and how to realize the Flight of the Flamingos.

This success also contributed to founding in 1996 The Millennium Project, a think tank that applies scenario development and other tools to produce its annual State of the Future reports.

And after leaving Shell, Kahane led numerous large system applications of scenario development-inspired approaches to “stuck” problems as he wrote in Solving Tough Problems.  That includes development of the Global Action Network called The Sustainable Food Lab.  Recently Kahane helped found Reos Partners, which is working with WWF-UK in The Finance Lab on an innovative project to transform finance that also engaged ISIS.

Scenarios focus upon a question that can be exploratory – “What do you think the future might be?” or normative – “What kind of future would you like to see?”  In a recent article Wilkinson and Edinow (also at InSIS)  define three types of approaches to scenarios that are related to three types of change challenges.  From simplest to most complex, these are:

• Problem-focused: setting out to create accurate maps of the future that will enable others to reach a destination as reliably and efficiently as possible…an approach used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
• Actor-focused: setting out on a journey and inviting the whole crew to help draw a map of the route that they need to take…an approach used by the World Business Council on Sustainable Development on the issue of water.
• Reflexive interventionist/multi-agent-based (RIMA): setting out on a journey in which environmental scenarios help to shape not only the route, but also the ship, its crew and the ocean itself.  Knowledge is multiple, temporary and dependent upon context.

The RIMA approach is the cutting edge to ‘wicked problems that involve sustaining collaborative action in the public interest/common good.

What are your views on, and experience with, scenario development?