Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community
The link from Harold Jarche's blog to Dummies Guide to Change wasn't working when I last tried it - the web server at Typepad appears to be down - but save this one and try it again in a day or so. The concepts discussed - things like the Power Law and the Tipping Point - are important concepts emanating from the study of networks (and in particular, social networks). These are early days for a field that will be of increasing importance as people try to understand why things like the blogosphere and RSS work so quickly and so well when there was no central authority driving them forward. If this catches your interest, Mark Buchanan's book Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Theory of Networks is a pretty easy read and will fill in a lot of the gaps. For the real deal and some daunting mathematics, follow the other paper cited by Jarche, Fang Wu and Bernardo A. Huberman's Social Structure and Opinion Formation.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Mar 29, 2024 11:10 a.m.

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