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This blog is focused on "exploding" old concepts and thinking about economies, organizations, communities, and groups.\n\nWe will focus on patterns of connectivity and self-organizing behavior in economic and social networks and how these new structures lead to resilience, adaptability, agility, transparency, and innovation.

Trust is a business perennial-from the days when chickens were traded for cowrie shells until we start trading with extraterrestrial races, trust has been and always will be the central factor in business relationships. However in the networked world there are three vital shifts in the nature and role of trust.

Why wouldn't every organization flock to the vision of an agile, transparent, people-centered, and collaborative team? Let's count the reasons.

A guiding goal in much of my work is the democratization of the workplace. Democracy is our best structure for political governance and I believe it should be the basis of our workplaces as well. As work and learning become integrated in a networked society, I see great opportunities to create better employment models.

While revelling about the marvels of a given tool, we often tend to forget that every tool will be used 'in context' and that, in most cases, the presence of the right context will prove to be more important than the choice of the right tool. Also in a network economy, this rule still holds.

We live in a networked economy. The Internet, e-mail, mobile telephony, they all make our way of communication easier, faster and independent of time and location. But is it also getting any better?

Increasingly, Web 2.0 solutions are making inroads into the enterprise. However, both employers and employees still have to discover what are the mutual rights, obligations and associated risks.

In our last post, we discussed talent development as an operational challenge. This time around we'll explore how the organization itself needs to change so that it develops a talent edge.

It might seem a peculiar time to talk about talent. Aren't most people these days happy just to have their jobs? Aren't employers more concerned about outplacement than recruiting? And what company has the budget to fund expensive training programs?

A recent survey conducted by Proofpoint found that 8% of companies had terminated employees due to social media usage (common causes including sharing sensitive information on a network). And while the statistic seems significant, it only underscores one of several upcoming challenges nearly every organization will face as changes in people, process and technology fueled by the collective movement we call social media begin to transform business. Here are a few challenges that every organization should be planning for right now. If you aren't you will be.

Economies of scale are well understood. Bigger factories are more efficient, bigger distribution networks are more efficient, bigger ad campaigns can be more efficient. It's often hard to defeat a major competitor, particularly if the market is looking for security and the status quo. But what about the economies of small? Is being bigger an intrinsic benefit in and of itself?

Not large corporations, but networks of small companies and individuals will be the future drivers for innovation and prosperity. A policy paper of The Lisbon Council.

When trying to explain new concepts or paradigms, analogies can be a great tool. However, we should avoid using them for carrying the message of the guarantee of future success.

Formalizing a company's ad hoc peer groups can spur collaboration and unlock value.

Number of followers, connections, reputation, influence... they all become increasingly important social metrics. However, are we measuring the right things?