When I started reading Derek's post, I thought he was headed off on something about the network of the writing classroom, so maybe that's a tangent that I'm off on. Particularly and it's intersections with technology as I extend the web of my classroom out to news stories, Web sites, e-mails, and other ways of connecting outside of the space of the classroom.

(my train of thought has just been derailed by Maggie Estep)

So, as I'm reading Watts and having difficulties synthesizing ideas, I'm struck by how difficult the task of writing about something as amorphous as networks is. What I'm left with is a general notion (my early inclination is to respond in the language of Foucault's discourse, but I'm not sure that would clear much up) of the myriad of ways we are influenced. Network theory isn't exactly a mathematical problem, though it can be effectively described in mathematical terms. It seems to hover in that vortex between science and humanities, and this is likely why it is so attractive to so many disciplines.

I am intrigued, I suppose, by Watts' descriptions of graph theory and how they can describe for us how networks get formed. There certainly is a center/periphery model that we can use to explain some networks. Certain spheres of influence grow from a dominant (or louder) voice. On some level, our perceptions of a concert are shaped more by the band on stage than by the crowd around us. After all we gathered to see that group and they are, after all, exerting influence over the audience. When the lights go down, the crowd, hushes. So the stage director also has some influence, and when that first chord is struck, and the crowd recognizes the song, we all go nuts. However, while the band is the focus, this model doesn't always do a good job of explaining the exchange (for example the calls for encores), and it certainly doesn't do anything to explain the networks that form outward from the event.

I feel like I never found the tracks again.