Emergent Networks

Emergent Networks – Some Thoughts

Jim Jordan, May 2014

Introduction

The Task Force on Reimaging the Church (TREC) Study Papers have many references to networks.  The network is the dominant organizational form shaping their discussions.  The Study Paper on Networks presents a taxonomy of networks to describe existing and proposed church structure.  The taxonomy, in the most general view, considers two versions of networks.  Version 1 networks appear to be networks whose origin lies in acts of General Convention and Executive Committee, in the Constitution and Canons, in Resolutions, in other adopted motions, and in actions of the Presiding Bishop and/or the President of the House of Deputies. There is an element of top-down purposing for these networks.

Version 2 networks appear to be networks that emerge as groups of individual Episcopalians, or possibly groups of congregations, deaneries, or dioceses working toward a commonly agreed goal.  I call these emergent networks.  TREC has asked for worked examples.  I can think of four, one church-related and international in scope, one secular, local, and environmentally-oriented, one secular and outreach-oriented, one secular and business-related.  I find it interesting that each started informally and grew organically – to a point.  As they grew and were successful, they also became formalized and institutionalized.

Bible Challenge

The Bible Challenge, a structured program for reading the Bible in one year that has international reach, is the result of an emergent process.  Begun as a priest’s personal discipline and driven by his passionate belief that reading the entire Bible could be a transformative experience for Christians, it spread through his parish and beyond.  As interest grew, apparently through word-of-mouth advertising, the outlines of a more formal program emerged.  For example, the effort to extend the program included a book of commentaries written by a network of Episcopal and Anglican church leaders.  “Grassroots” funding led to the establishment of the Institute for Biblical Studies, which continues to maintain and expand the program.

Friends of the Gualala River (FoGR)

FoGR’s most recent incarnation began in 2002, defending the Gualala River against an audacious dewatering scheme.  Several passionately concerned watershed residents banded together to activate what had been a dormant group.  Since then, FoGR has emerged into an advocacy group for the watershed’s environment, responding to a wide range of perceived threats to the river’s quality as habitat, especially for threatened or endangered species.  The all-volunteer, slowly changing, leadership continues to meet and operate by consensus, with minimal structure.  However, the group has reached a point where additional structure, and probably independent non-profit corporate status, is needed because of its fund raising activities and its involvement in legal actions.

Team Rubicon

Team Rubicon started in a bar with some Afghanistan and Iraq veterans talking about the Haiti earthquake, realizing that they had skills that could be useful in the early days after a disaster.  Three or four determined to go to Haiti and started off.  On their way, they met other veterans who joined up, ending with a team of perhaps ten – including an ex-Army doctor, who entered Haiti a few days after the earthquake via the Dominican Republic.  A network of friends with whom they had contact via social media kicked in money to support their travel and to help them provide help to the Haitians.  One veteran’s father, who managed the collection and transmission of the money, realized the need for the protections of not-for-profit incorporation and Team Rubicon was the organizational result.  Team Rubicon has grown and expanded the scope of its activities beyond Haiti to provide crisis relief in other disaster emergencies.

IBM’s Internal Electronic Network

In 1969, technology innovators in IBM centers in Palo Alto, San Jose, and Cambridge used their centers’ computers to establish an electronic linkage, testing a protocol for electronic data communication.  This nascent network was opened to other IBM centers; the rules were simple – a center joining the network paid its communication line costs and committed to making ports available to other centers wanting to join the network.  The network quickly became pervasive throughout IBM as center managers realized the benefits of electronic communication for many product development applications.  Funding was “below the radar,” coming primarily from each center’s discretionary budget.  It was several years before corporate executives realized how dependent on the network IBM’s operations had become.  

There is a parallel story in the growth of the Internet, although the Internet grew out of ARPAnet, an effort funded and purposed by the Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Projects Agency.  The emergent behavior of the Internet and the evolving networking applications it supports have led to a popular familiarity with networking concepts.

Conclusions

I conclude that emergent networks provide a useful grass-roots model for bringing good ideas and projects “to market.”  I also conclude that the larger and more successful an emergent network becomes, the greater the need for formal structure.  Each of the examples started with a specific, narrowly defined goal that elicited passionate commitment by a nucleus of founders.  Each grew to include more expansive goals.

At some point, a church-related emergent network will have to decide whether it wants to organize independently, as Bible Challenge has, or to organize under the Episcopal Church brand.  If it makes the latter choice, the network will need to fit within the strategy of the Episcopal Church and in an appropriate place in the Episcopal Church structure.  

I do not think we have a structure now to accommodate emergent networks with ease. We will have to decide which responsibilities we should devolve to emergent networks, having faith that all the strategic needs will be spanned, in time, by networks.  Maintaining the Episcopal Church brand (a shorthand way of saying maintaining the integrity of the Episcopal Church) will require oversight of branded networks by agents of the structure.