Ego-Network vs Eco-Network

Description

By Christine Capra:

Ego-Network

"On a network map it looks like a hub with spokes. The relevant connections are to the single node at the center.

In our society, an ego network is generally connected around support of the core person in some way — important career contacts; the politicians a lobbyist cultivates; the network of family, friends and caregivers around someone with a severe illness, or something like the child support network I was gifted with as a young single mom, made up of sage advisors, friends who babysat regularly (or with whom I swapped regular babysitting) so I could work, friends who would drop everything to come get the kid if I had an emergency, and the kid’s dad who gave me big chunks of time off. In that case, the connection to me (and the kid) was what was relevant — whether or not any of them knew one another didn’t really matter. There was no larger purpose than helping me out or enjoying my kid.

This is the type of network that ‘networking’ tries to build and leverage. It is often based on direct reciprocity (I scratch your back, you scratch mine), is personally maintained (I work to maintain the relationship — stay in touch, send gifts, etc.), and often requires a direct match between my needs and yours — if there’s no direct match, there’s no relationship. (i.e. if you can’t help me raise my kid, I have far less reason to sustain our relationship, given my limited time and energy). And it’s often homophilic (‘like attracting to like’) or relatively homogenous. My kid-network consisted entirely of older-moms, current-moms, wanna-be moms and one dad.

And because of their relative homogeneity, ego-Networks can easily become echo-chambers.

If the hub of an ego-network goes away the network falls apart. In an ego-network, the person is the purpose, and without that person, the connections are gone. My marriage (wonderful as it is), ended a lovely phase of networked connectedness in my life, because the purpose of our interactions (my need for help with child-raising) ended and the network drifted apart." (https://medium.com/virtual-teams-for-systemic-change/network-ing-does-not-equal-network-weaving-abf1978e79)

Eco-Network

"An Eco-Network is a relative newcomer to the network-science labelling game. I don’t even know where I got the term from. It’s not in the book I pulled the others from, which is what I’d expected. I know I’ve come across it in a few places over the course of my network reading but haven’t been able to re-find them — so if anyone reading this can find them, please share with us!

In any case, an eco-network sits somewhere between a socio-network and an open-network. A socio-network (the ‘network in a box’) generally has a centrally defined, narrow purpose (think ‘mission statement’ or ‘avoiding organizational bankruptcy’); a clear and precise definition of inclusion (think ‘everyone on our payroll’ or ‘the roll-call list’); a relatively centralized and hierarchical command system; and officially-sanctioned and controlled information and resource flows (balanced by secret, un-sanctioned information flows). Whereas an open network is unbounded, random, directionless and incoherent (think Twitter, Facebook, Instagram).

So we could think of an eco-network as skirting the boundary between rigid pseudo-control and a free-for-all. In my mind, an eco-network is the social equivalent of that strange attractor within a system that generates ordered patterns out of chaos. To me, an eco-network has the potential to generate a collective path from our current world — a world presently oscillating between destructive authoritarian rigidity and chaotic collapse — to a new world, built on an evolved understanding of order/structure, connection, and thriving.

But what does all that MEAN, practically speaking?

Well, it helps to think about ecosystems. For one thing, both eco-networks and ecosystems only thrive with ample diversity.

For another — in both cases, flows of resources (whether money, information, skills, trust and shared inspiration or nutrients, shared environmental context, water and sunshine) are complexly reciprocal, as opposed to transactional. In a forest ecosystem, no-one barters with the squirrel to get it to poop out worm and fungi food. And in exchange for the squirrel poop, worms and fungi don’t break the elements down fine enough so that plant roots can absorb them because because the trees or the pooping animals pay them to — they do it because that’s what they do, it’s part of their organic process. The trees and other plants only grow if there are adequate nutrients and water — and when they do, they create food some of the animals need to survive (and poop out), some of which become food for other animals, and it all requires water, water retention, healthy soil — and so on. There is an organically-driven flow of value, based on adequate diversity, that is not directly transactional.

There is no need for direct transactions because each community member’s survival depends on the in-flows (food, etc.) and out-flows (poop, etc.) of all the members. Transactions are too small a dynamic to support the complexity and adaptivity of an ecosystem.

The ecosystem forms an interdependent network of a huge variety of life forms, moving a broad range of nutrients freely through a complex system of flows that sustains the whole thing. Pull out too many parts, or just block up too many of the flows from one component to another and the whole thing collapses. And when I say ‘flows’ here, I mean ‘connection’/’relationship’. You could have all the pieces of the system/network, but if they weren’t able to interact, you wouldn’t have a network, let alone a living system.

In an ecosystem, there is also no ‘boss’, no centralized command and control. The whole thing works because of how the community fits together, not because someone designed it that way. A social eco-network is similar. There may be players with larger impacts and greater input into direction, but that doesn’t mean they master-mind and control the whole thing.

Another thing a social eco-network and a ecosystem have in common is boundaries. They may be fuzzy, but they are real and discernable. For instance, there is diversity, but the diversity isn’t infinite (like it could be in an open network) and it certainly isn’t random. Whales don’t occupy forests, butterflies don’t do arctics, polar bears don’t co-exist well within rainforests.

With ecosystems the boundary is environmental, the community members all thrive within a similar environment. With an eco-network, the boundary is purpose. And the boundary is what holds the community together." (https://medium.com/virtual-teams-for-systemic-change/network-ing-does-not-equal-network-weaving-abf1978e79)

Comparison

Christine Capra:

"The main distinction between an ego-network and an eco-network is this — the eco-network exists to support a purpose, not a person or an organization. It supports a broad purpose that is greater than any of the individuals involved, but which benefits all the individuals involved. It’s also a purpose which can’t be served nearly as effectively by individuals (or individual organizations) acting on their own, without the diverse and reciprocal flows of support and information that characterizes an ecosystem.

The glue, then, is not ONLY strong personal bonds (as in an ego-network) — though it won’t ever work without a lot of them — it is ALSO an intention that is larger than the personal bonds. It is an intention to be one part of a larger, purposeful, whole. An intention to help develop that whole and the individuals within it in ways that are generative for oneself as well as for the larger purpose.

An eco-network, then, has: a purpose; diverse membership; complex reciprocity; multiple ‘centers’ with multiple roles; and a robust and free flow of information, resources, capacity and care to where they are needed most. A flow that both includes and transcends the bonds of personal connection, and that emerge from the interactions.

Far from being a popularity contest, an eco-network is a puzzle we can do together. It’s a fun but serious game of learning about fits and flows — about how to amplify the impact of what each member has to offer. It’s a dance between the individual and the collective, an ever-shifting experiment with order emerging from chaos." (https://medium.com/virtual-teams-for-systemic-change/network-ing-does-not-equal-network-weaving-abf1978e79)