Power is moving to the larger system level, while violence is moving downwards to the individual level ... Networking is about human behavior. Remember that to network is a verb. If you want to increase the richness of your information you get that by sharing it. The power of information comes in the ability to share it as opposed to the ability to hoard it. The soldier on the front line needs a network structure and he has to be shown that power comes out of that network structure. He have to institutionalize peer-to-peer and power-to-the-edge. ... If we do that well we find that we step out of the information domain of merely networking and into the cognitive domain where battles are truly won or lost. One of the most gut wrenching things that occured during the raid in Somalia depicted in Black Hawk Down was the direction of the caravan through the city through two levels of higharchy. It was obviously stupid. You had someone in a command center looking at a video of the caravan, making a decision, relaying that decision to someone in an airplane, who relayed that decision to the driver. By the time the driver got the decision the circumstances had totally changed. Thats it in a nutshelll. In the past the people at the top made decisions because they were the only ones with the perspective to make them. This is an extremely inefficient way to operate. The people on the frontlines need to be making the decisions, and the people in the offices are simply there to give them the perspective they need to make those decisions. These changes will mirror the changes you'll see in every kind of organization that exists. Transformation Trends - 17 February 2003 | 
