The Collaboration Pyramid

1 / Intracommunity assessment
People within communities work together to create a common understanding of the opportunity landscapes. We’re talking here about 5 types of communities:

a. people with needs/hopes
b. people with new ideas
c. people with talent/expertise
d. people with resources/funding
e. people with social/political/economic legitimizing power

At Level 1, people with needs and hopes work together with other people with needs and hopes; people with new ideas work together with other people with new ideas, and so on. All collaborations happen within each community.

2 / Intercommunity assessment
People across communities work together to create a common understanding of the opportunity landscapes. For example at Level 2, you find collaborations between people with needs/hopes working with people with new ideas. People with funding/resources working with people with talent/

3 / Intracommunity dreaming
People within communities collaborate in visioning, prioritizing, and planning relative to discovered collaboration opportunities.
expertise.

4 / Intercommunity dreaming
People across communities collaborate in visioning, prioritizing, and planning relative to discovered collaboration opportunities.

5 / Select-invite R&D project
People within or across communities work together in invitation-specific projects

6 / Open R&D project
People within or across communities work together in open invitation projects

7 / Shared ownership/governance of new enterprise
Participants of R&D projects that create a new enterprise share ownership and/or governance. New enterprises include new civic programs, organizations, services.

Our 3 circles

This is a graphic we use to show our 3 circles of connections in our networks.

Our 1st circle are people we know well.
In our 2nd circle are people we know but not well - they are our 1st circle people's 1st circle
In our 3rd circle are people we don't know at all, but who are known by people in our 1st and 2nd circles.

The further out we go, the more we discover people with more differences than ourselves, which in our world, means a goldmine of new possibilities!

The Planet: One introduction at a time

Networks build through introductions and not all introductions are equal. They are distinguished by the quality of the introduction.

If people are not naturally connection-prone, we need to spend more time facilitating connection. The more we are a presence in the introduction, the more people gain from the trust each has with us.

Introductions are an art yet conceptually simple: it's all about helping people discover the value in each other.

How do social and economic networks the size of a planet grow? As Valdis says: one introduction at a time.

Building Smart Networks

The Network Weaving experience of ACEnet is described in a white paper [PDF] by Valdis and June. The paper steps you through the network weaving process, from beginning to vibrant network. The paper was published in the Non-Profit Quarterly in 2005 and was chosen as one of the best articles of the year in NPQ.

In the latest version of the paper, we add a new idea from Jack -- the Introduction Pyramid [PDF]. This explains how one-on-one introductions are a key part of weaving the network and how they follow a scale of involvement and probablity of success.