Tag: Social-impact networks

Considering Community: The Connect-Align-Produce network model for social-impact networks

In social-impact networks community members work together to create change for social good. In this post, CSCCE Director Lou Woodley takes a look at how that works. This post originally … Continue reading “Considering Community: The Connect-Align-Produce network model for social-impact networks”

In social-impact networks community members work together to create change for social good. In this post, CSCCE Director Lou Woodley takes a look at how that works. This post originally appeared on Social in silico.

Cartoon with arrows pointing from human face to human face
How many people in your network are connected to others in the network? Image credit: Jurgen Appelo on Flickr

For regular online communities, such as those hosted by an organisation, we looked at the four stage model of the community lifecycle described in Rich Millington’s “Buzzing Communities”. Last week, we considered a different type of community – a social-impact network where the emphasis is on group members working together for a social good. In “Connecting to Change the World”, the authors discuss three different stages of a social-impact network – and how it’s possible to transition between them. Let’s consider this connect-align-produce model.

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Considering Community: What’s a social-impact network?

Posted by Lou Woodley, Community Engagement Director – Trellis and Program Director – AAAS Community Engagement Fellows Program This post originally appeared on Social in silico. What’s a social-impact network? This week I’ve … Continue reading “Considering Community: What’s a social-impact network?”

Posted by Lou Woodley, Community Engagement Director – Trellis and Program Director – AAAS Community Engagement Fellows Program

This post originally appeared on Social in silico.

What’s a social-impact network?

This week I’ve been reading “Connecting to change the world” by Peter Plastrik, Madeleine Taylor and John Cleveland. It’s a focused, practical guide to building a very specific type of community – a social-impact network.

Whereas the word community has now been adopted for somewhat ambiguous use in a wide variety of scenarios involving groups of people, a social-impact network has a clear definition. It’s a collection of collaborators who are working together in some way to address a complex social issue.

Social-impact networks are self-organising – with decision-making distributed across the networks and with a structure that may change rapidly (such as the formation or closure of working groups).

Continue reading “Considering Community: What’s a social-impact network?”