The Tangled Web We Weave


		The Tangled Web We Weave Complexity in an On-line, Virtual Community Observations about an internet listserv discussion group as a complex adaptive system
		Told by: Paul Plsek Illustration of: dialogue community building emergence (application as a dialogue principle)
		I participate in a number of Internet listserv discussion groups. (An Internet listserv group is a collection of people interested in a specific topic. They converse with other, like-minded individuals via e-mail messages, called "postings." For example, a person might start a discussion by posing a question in an e-mail message and sending it to the listserv address. The listserv computer, in turn, sends this message out via e-mail to everyone who is signed up for the listserv. Each of these people can then respond to the question, and have their responses likewise distributed to everyone on the listserv. This can go on for a while as people respond to other people’s responses. Typically, this is a very free-speech kind of thing; no one monitors or censors the comments. In this way, an on-line conversation is created. But it is a different kind of conversation because people are spread out all over the world and responses can come several days after the question was asked. The set of postings on a given subject is called a "thread." There can be several threads active at once. They go on for as long as the people on the listserv have something to say about them.) One such listserv that I participate in is the CREA-CPS Creativity and Creative Problem Solving list hosted by the Creative Education Foundation in Buffalo, NY. This particular listserv has about 400 subscribers. As in any large group of people, a few people are quite active in posting questions and comments, while the majority of people are just silent observers, "lurkers" or "standers-by" in listserv lingo. The central topic of the listserv is creativity and creative problem solving. CREA and CPS are specific, well known creative thinking methods advocated by the Creative Education Foundation. People who sign up for the listserv naturally expect that the discussion will be about these methods and their applications. Usually, this is the case; but, occasionally someone will introduce a topic that is only peripherally related to this purpose, or there will be a thread in which people are obviously just having fun or showing off their knowledge of arcane topics. Examples of such threads include a discussion of the recent Heaven’s Gate cult suicide and a discussion of how to cook pasta. Reflection: An Internet listserv has all the characteristics of a CAS. Individual agents are free to say what they want. There is a loose sense of overall purpose. There are only minimum specifications. There is a high degree of connectivity among agents. Topics emerge from the interaction, rise to prominence for a short while, and then fade away to be replaced by other topics. The fact that seemingly off-topic threads emerge from time to time is not surprising in such a system. Idea: It would be great to do a study of these emergent phenomena on listservs. The number of seemingly off-topic threads has appeared to rise recently. And a few members of the listserv have seemingly had enough of it. There have been several postings about this; some not-so-nice. This started a discussion thread which just brought more people into it on both sides. This interaction prompted a member of the listserv, Penelope Kelly, to post a message to the listserv "owner;" a person at the Creative Education Foundation named "Marc" who I don’t recall as being very active in past discussions. Nevertheless, Marc, nicknamed "list-papa," responded back in a way that I thought was very much consistent with a CAS lens. Penelope’s posting and Marc’s response are reproduced below... ______________________________________________ Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 15:15:13 +0000 Sender: CREA-CPS Creativity and Creative Problem Solving <CREA-CPS@NIC.SURFNET.NL> Subject: Re: calling list-papa Penelope Kelly wrote: > > marc, have you had time to follow the thread on ‘experts’ and >what you as > the list owner envision for your list? what say you? does this list > please you? are you content with the content? does it address > creativity? at least one list member feels that the list diverges too > much .. what do you say? > > penelope kelly > pkelly@efn.org (written after writing the following) I have a problem in writing this up. When I read myself back, I can add and work on balancing words, adding more subtle meanings in the text, and so on. I’ll stop doing this, and just send you this temporary impression. Thanks Penelope, I have all kinds of thoughts starting from this thread: One: the list is a community which welcomes diversity both on content and expertise. I’m not sure whether these are just words, or also daily practice. (Would this be a thread that needs exploration ?) Two: a community has formed over time, like a little village with a public market place where we all meet in the view of visitors, standers-by, etc. And in such a village, you will find relationships, dynamics, initiatives, patterns, and so on. And for newcomers, or standers-by, it may sometimes be hard to ‘entre’ in this active market place. I would think, in this case, mostly by the impression standers-by will form of the visible interactions, leading to projections such as ‘they are experts, and who am I in this midst’. Also for me writing this up in front of this audience, I can’t avoid being careful with my words. Three: I’m being seen as the ‘creator’ of this list. Just, for a little while, assuming this is so, I reckon one of the elements leading to this ‘healthy and enjoyable continuing community’ is that it leads its own life, there is no top-down predefined directing from some party. Of course, some take more initiative than others, but it is always in the form of an invitation. I love the community as it has evolved over the years, the people who partake, this feeling of welcome that I also experience at some conferences and get-togethers on creativity and innovation (the European networking conferences, the Dutch creativity network Creanet, CPSI, and more), it is a feeling that hope can materialize, or optimism, it’s also about inspiration. Maybe it ought to be a little more about ‘recognition’ of diversity. But the last aspect is directly connected (as a dilemma) to the idea of a crystallized community with a ‘formed culture’. So, the question of divergence, to me, is an easy one. As long as we can force-fit our messages with creativity in some form or other, that should be fine. I mean, the deepest effect in change processes might come from stories, stories that do not show any expert’s explanation, but inspire the other to invent their own understandings and interventions. So, where would we have to set a criterion for how far to diverge in our sharings? We are all different, we have different ways to express ourselves, and, if you ask me, it’s so hard to get a grip, or no better, on how to get an understanding of where somebody is coming from, that I think it’s better to leave that to some ‘community intuition’. Let’s put effort in listening and getting a grip on some ‘strange divergence’ and than try some force-fitting, e.g. in sharing what some poem might mean to you. Is this what you meant, Penelope ? Your’s, Marc ______________________________________________ Reflection: I was blown away by Marc’s response. The sense of community-building, dialogue, story-telling, metaphor, paradox-tolerance, anxiety-holding, diversity, no central controller, and edge of chaos is outstanding. Marc’s comments could easily apply to any collection of people working together to make sense of something, or accomplish a hard-to-define purpose. Wouldn’t it be nice if work groups thought of themselves in the same way that Marc sees this Internet listserv community? Brenda Zimmerman adds her reflection: All listservs, indeed all human dialogue groups, are different. The degree of connectivity in a listserv is not only measured by the number of points, nodes or agents. I think some listserv conversations, and by extension human dialogues, have much more generative potential because they connect at multiple levels. They are not just exchanging information, but they are also exchanging meaning-making, emotions, spiritual philosophy, etc. Some listservs and dialogue groups appear to be webs, but in actual effect the hierarchies that exist in other aspects of life play out in the exchanges (for example, the "experts" and "standers-by" on this listserv). Also, I have seen examples where listservs act as a hub-and-spoke rather than a web; the list owner responds to every post. This also happens in other types of discussion groups. Some of the conditions for generative potential are shared directedness, action opportunities, and heterogeneity. Perhaps there is also another dimension to generative potential within a community (whether in the virtual or real world) and that is the number of levels of connections-intellectual, task, emotional, spiritual. Too much connectedness can lead to dissipation and chaos, but we need enough to make it generative.
		Next \| Previous \| Return to top Copyright © 2001, Paul E. Plsek & Associates, www.directedcreativity.com Permission to copy for educational purposes only. All other rights reserved.