oh, and p.s. this also has to do with the centripetal/centrifugal and inward/outward stuff we've been talking about for the past couple of weeks.

cgb

and p.s.s. if that's the case, then is it possible to translate some of the ideas from 6D into blogging practice, specifically as we've thought about it in terms of inward and outward gestures?

cgb

The interdisciplinarity thing caught my attention for a number of reasons, but mostly because it was about individuals "crossing" disciplinary boundaries because of a connection to a friend. I'm thinking of this specifically in opposition to institutionally constructed interdisciplinary spaces. In the many classes I have been in that were not part of the "official" program I was studying, I've really noticed the tendency of individual faculty members to develop interests outside the traditional boundaries of their discplines, then bring those outside interests, with their methods and texts and experts, into the home discipline, thus troubling the demarcation of discipline.

The longer I observe this, the more I wonder why the disciplinary structure survives, and why there isn't a more deliberate effort and sharing knowledge, as Watts describes throughout chapter 5, and sums up so beautifully at the end. Or maybe it isn't that there isn't an effort to make these connections, as many faculty and students are engaged in multi-disciplinary reading groups or projects. Maybe it is instead the problem of (gasp!) publishing? Tenure and promotion issues? Hiring committees?

I'd like to think that blogging would help change this, but I wonder if it can.

i guess i'm wondering about the significance of multi memberships in various and divergent networks. my enrollment in this course has placed me in all kinds of networks because i know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody who can get me a hook-up on a new television. but what does that really mean to me? unless i take advantage of my network and take the path toward the person in the network who works in an electronic dept in some store, what will it matter that we are in the same network? i guess what i'm trying to articulate is that i kinda understand what watts is doing with his explanation of network theory. i can see the buttons on the floor. i can imagine what may happen if the right power line were to fall. what about the implications? maybe this is a better way to ask my question: what does it matter if i'm a member of a network but never become fully aware of that network, or for that matter, meet other members of the network? so now i'm a member of this network because i had a course with this professor. or i'm a member of that network because you're a colleague of mine. now what? i mean, can i really meet everyone in the various networks to which i belong @ 4 c's? if i tried really hard and sacrificed attending some panel discussions, perhaps. but what would we talk about?

watts offers me an answer:

"...the answers to these questions depend very much on the sort of action or influence--dynamics on the network--in which one is interested. Different kinds of dynamics on networks, therefore, have to be explored in different ways, sometimes leading us to new insights about the network themselves" (129)

i'm wondering what would be the first step. things that make you go, "hmmm?"

Good questions, E. Dynamics is the next step after structure, and a necessary step at that--for me, dynamics means asking the "so what" question. What do these various structures allow for (or alternatively, close off)?

Here's one concrete answer: Kelly just got an old CCCC paper from a friend of mine, Jenny Bay, a professor at Purdue, that will help her with her project for Becky's class. She wouldn't have known about that paper but for me (Jenny delivered it at a panel that she and I did together in 2001), and she might not have felt comfortable contacting Jenny but for Eileen (Jenny was a student of Eileen's at Virginia Tech).

It's not a network-transforming event, perhaps, but there's no other way that K could have gotten a hold of that paper. Maybe it's not quite at the level of the contacts and collaborations that Watts narrates for us, but it's one connection among many--there's a lot of friend-of-a-friend networking that goes on in any discipilne...

cgb

lots of that friend-of-a-friend networking going on 'round here for sure. i guess what i'm still working thru is how knowledges of networks can be applied. i understand that we are a networked institution, and i am aware of how those networks are formed. but now what? it makes more sense to me if we try to anticipate the possible trajectories of the bird flu thru watts' network theory. his theories help us understand--or at least predict--how a thing may move thru a network like bird flu thru southeast asian cultures. but can an understanding of network theory help us determine future hiring trends? can we use network theory to determine which networks--in our field--are not functioning? perhaps i'm just asking the same question in a different way. i think i'm just trying to get at this sense of messiness that watts addresses when he discusses that one co-efficient that can do the most damage to a network: the human factor.

Let me flip one of those question backatcha:

How could we use network theory to understand or predict hiring trends in the field?

Or, to put it in terms of 611, would it be possible to find this data, understand it in terms of network theories, and craft a history of the field that way?

This is one of those questions that's going to make it hard for me to get to sleep tonight...wanna take it up in class on Thursday?

cgb

I was thinking about the centrifugal/centripetal part of this question, and as I read Watts's description of Barabasi and Albert being "one step ahead" because they were looking at a different part of the problem, I thought about how blogs fit with inward/outward gestures. Blogging allows for springboarding ideas. I read other people's blogs and see what they're thinking about and how they are approaching different aspects of the world, and if I am open to new ways of seeing my own world, I can find an idea that can be fit to whatever I'm working on. Rather like Watt's description of thinking about how studies of disease spreading could apply to financial markets (193). This seems to me to be an inward gesture of bloging - I go out in search of information i bring back to my own situation. This would be a centripetal motion.

When I post information, on the other hand, I am offering a way of seeing, or a set of ideas, or a theory, or whatever, for others to find and pick up. This is more of a centrifugal, or outward motion, where send ideas out into the world for whomever finds them to pick up, apply, or even adapt in ways that I couldn't have forseen.

In order for this all to happen, I as a searcher have to be open to ideas, and those ideas have to be freely available for me to find as my openness allows. As a poster, I have to be willing to share ideas, to let go of some or all of the sense of ownership that comes with ideas and ways of thinking and to be willing to offer thoughts and comments for others when I see their situations in a different way. To build on Collin's example above, I also need to be willing to be the bridge point between two entities who might not know each other, but who have a mutual interest. To single Kelly out again, I recently read a post in the WPA listserv that including the phrase "contrapower harrassment," so I forwarded the thread to Kelly. This gave her a name of someone she hadn't known about who was working on the same issue. Granted, Kelly had to be willing to send that person an e-mail message, but at least it gave her a contact point.

Anyway, in blogging it seems like we each have the potential to be inward gesturing and outward gesturing, and to be hubs as well.

somthing like that, anyway.

I was thinking about the centrifugal/centripetal part of this question, and as I read Watts's description of Barabasi and Albert being "one step ahead" because they were looking at a different part of the problem, I thought about how blogs fit with inward/outward gestures. Blogging allows for springboarding ideas. I read other people's blogs and see what they're thinking about and how they are approaching different aspects of the world, and if I am open to new ways of seeing my own world, I can find an idea that can be fit to whatever I'm working on. Rather like Watt's description of thinking about how studies of disease spreading could apply to financial markets (193). This seems to me to be an inward gesture of bloging - I go out in search of information i bring back to my own situation. This would be a centripetal motion.

When I post information, on the other hand, I am offering a way of seeing, or a set of ideas, or a theory, or whatever, for others to find and pick up. This is more of a centrifugal, or outward motion, where send ideas out into the world for whomever finds them to pick up, apply, or even adapt in ways that I couldn't have forseen.

In order for this all to happen, I as a searcher have to be open to ideas, and those ideas have to be freely available for me to find as my openness allows. As a poster, I have to be willing to share ideas, to let go of some or all of the sense of ownership that comes with ideas and ways of thinking and to be willing to offer thoughts and comments for others when I see their situations in a different way, or to pass along information when I see something that I know another might find useful - which in turn presupposes that I have taken the time and interest to know such things.

To build on Collin's example above, I also need to be willing to be the bridge point between two entities who might not know each other, but who have a mutual interest. To single Kelly out again, I recently read a post in the WPA listserv that including the phrase "contrapower harrassment," so I forwarded the thread to Kelly. This gave her a name of someone she hadn't known about who was working on the same issue. I had to be willing to read my WPA mail with more than just reading in my head, with a background sense of usefulness of information now only for myself, but for others around me. And this I think is a key part of it - we have to be thinking in network terms, or group terms, or other-people's-needs terms in order to make the most of the blogging (or other electronic data) world. Granted, Kelly had to be willing to send that person an e-mail message, but at least it gave her a contact point.

Anyway, in blogging it seems like we each have the potential to be inward gesturing and outward gesturing, and to be hubs as well.

somthing like that, anyway.