Who do you know?

Following up on the new Book of the Month (The Hidden Power of Social Networks), here are some of the conclusions from the book, and they may surprise you.

• It costs an organization or business money to foster collaboration and to support it over the long term. Too many organizations pay lip service to the notion of collaboration but don't do what it takes to support it or make the changes needed to encourage it.
• Technology and personal expertise does not distinguish high performers. In other words, having a lot of technology stuff and being good at using it does not, in and of itself, make a person more effective. The authors caution that workers do need the appropriate technology to do their jobs, but a lot of toys do not make someone smarter or better.
• One of the best predictors of high performance workers is how diversified their personal network is--the more diversified it is, the more likely they are ranked above average. In other words, who you know is what is important, more so that what you know, because the authors indicate that "relationships are critical for obtaining information, solving problems, and learning how to do your work."

I've been collaborating with Rick Smyre of Communities of the Future on capacity-building needs for organizations and communities, and one of the key concepts we have identified is "learning webs."

A learning web is a small group of people who have a strong trust relationship and who are committed to helping each other learn about and stay current with new ideas, concepts, and information that may be important to individuals in the group.

Do you have a learning web? What about your personal relationship network? Do you have a small group of people with whom you are comfortable asking for help? What about your community? One of the things you can do to help your community get connected with the Knowledge Economy is to help form learning webs centered around economic development, civic affairs, and local governance.

Technology does have a role to play in learning webs. A new generation of inexpensive, powerful Web portal software makes it easy to create a community Web site portal that can be used easily to set up and help support local learning webs.