It's interesting to read Burt and your comments, M., in light of our S.U. chancellor talking about our institution as being knowledge broker for the communities around this university. When I first heard/read her comments using this term, I was particularly irritated that we would assign such a metaphor to knowledge. After reading the first part of the Burt, I realize that I was knee-jerking. Now what I'm interested in is whether this university is in fact the knowledge broker for the CNY communities closest to it, and if so, how do we "broker" that knowledge to the greatest good?

More on this as I read on...

Webnote might be a web-based tool to create maps on the fly. Has anyone used it?

I don't have any definitive answers, but I think it starts with engaging citizens and students, and building trust and community. Have you read Ellen Cushman's, The Rhetorician as an Agent of Social Change? It's in CCC 47.1/February 1996 7-28. It gave me some ideas for what might be done. She also has an article, The Public Intellectual, Service Learning, and Activist Research in College English that I haven't read yet (61:3, January 1999). Also, Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship since Brown v. Board of Education by Danielle S. Allen is on my bookshelf to be read.

Your comparison to content production made me think of other organizations I've been part of and the kinds of information and knowledge flows that are necessary within them. One of the most exasperating and surprising things I found in an information driven workplace was how little people understood about the flow of paper that came across their desks. Structural holes, indeed! If you don't know where the paper comes to you from, or where it goes after you and what gets done with it, how can you appreciate your position in the process, or have any sense tthat it's important for your work to be accurate?

I guess my role in those organizations was often most like Roberts, in Burt's examples. I found out everything I could about what other people did, so when there was a problem, or if I overheard people wondering what to do, I could make connections. As Burt's work suggests, I was rewarded for that effort, gaining recognition as being someone to go to and promotions thereby.

I think the question of the university as knowledge broker has a lot to do with trust. There's no question that the university is a respository of a certain kind of knowledge. But will the community trust us as a broker of knowledge important or meaningful to them? That's harder. Last year in our service learning coordinating group we talked a lot about the suspicion that seems automatic whenever the "gown" tries to help the "town". It takes a real finesse to bring knowledge without condecension, particularly when we extend our help outward. So for me part of the question was, how can we represent ourselves outwardly in such a way that the community would want to come to us for help or information?

You're right about the trust issues, C., and i'm thinking about how network theory can facilitate in that area. I think mapping our blind spots, ie, realizining the limitations of the rhetorical choice to call it "service" as opposed to "collaborative knowledge building" or "partners in problem solving" could go a long way. I mean, "taking" knowledge to them is built on a natularized assumption that we have the knowledge that "counts," right? It'd be interesting to try out the postmodern mapping on this issue.

Both of Cushman's articles are on my list to read, M. Thanks for reminding me.

You finish up here in a place I was thinking about--examining networks as rhetorical situations. Before, it seemed to me something like market research was called for, but it appeals much more to my aesthetic sense to think of the mapping of the context as part of the analysis, as you are suggesting here.