Human networks rule because we are fundamentally creatures of community

We shape our tools, and our tools shape us. Often the shaping is at a social (group) level, rather than an individual one.

Consider the changes in management practices, and in society at large, over the past, say, 40 years. The general tendency has been to a flattening of hierarchies, and a more "network" style of management - this has been reflected in society.

Correspondingly - and who is to say which followed which - the principal tool of our modern world, the computer, has shifted from an individual tool available only to the elite, to a networked tool available to all (well, nearly all).

"The network is the computer," said Sun Microsystems, in one of the most prescient marketing slogans of all time. And so it was. Management gurus discovered the same idea - hierarchies are not the way, the way (that can be followed) is flatter, more peer-to-peer, more networked, less hierarchical. Our social and managerial practices mirrored our technologies, our tools. As the computer networks grew, we moved to a more egalitarian social model.

Are our technologies (ie. the computer) and our social organisation driven by the same principles? Do both reflect a shift from "nodes" (the power of the individual) to "networks" (the power of relationships)? Is this only a feature of Western models, social organisation and technology use?

The answer to the last question is probably: "Partly." There is some evidence that Westerners and those of "Eastern" descent tend to deal with the world differently. Whereas Westerners tend to see things in terms of categories (father), "Eastern" peoples see things in terms of relationships (father-of). "Eastern" philosophies have long emphasised the relatedness of all things, rather than the things themselves.

The answer to the earlier questions, in my opinion, is "probably". There would seem to be myriad pieces of evidence that we are beginning to move away from concentration on the "thing" to the "relationship between things" in almost every aspect of our environmental, economic and social behaviours. "Putting a human face on our technologies" consists, then, at least partly of this recognition - that we are related beings, not individual ones.

As a first example, the entire phenomenon of "groupware" - software designed to enhance collaborative work - springs to mind. Groupware has been one of the fastest-growing categories of software in the last decade.

The rise of the Internet is perhaps the most visible example of our new emphasis on the network - with vast consequences for software companies from Microsoft down the economic tree. Human consequences - layoffs, the downturn of whole regions - have followed our shift from the individual to the networked.

In the social arena, the move of "community development" out of the local government arena into property development, mining companies, and other commercial groups, is an obvious example of our new-found (at least in the West) devotion to the group, the community. With it has come a whole new vocabulary: social capital, community capacity, community of interest, and so on.

And here's the rub.

In our move from concentration on empowering the individual to making the most of networks and networking, we have overshot our empirical base. There is a paucity of models on which to base, for example, community development, leaving our activities searching for a theory to act within. The end result is diversity of opinion on what "community development" is, how to "build community", what exactly "social capital" consists of, and so on.

Perhaps we might learn a little from our tools. There is plenty of work done in computer science on networking, network efficiency-we might find at least metaphorical suggestions for how to network people as efficiently. Or, we might not.

There is another side to all this, and that is the role of feminism. Feminism is one of the great "isms" of the past four decades - a partial list of the others might include environmentalism and terrorism. The shift to a more "relationship" view of the world coincides, I believe, with a more active role in the world for women. Women, it seems to me, are (or have been) more socialised than men to view the world on a "relationship" rather than categorical (thing) basis. As Billy Crystal said, women need a reason to have sex, men just need a place. Perhaps, with the arguably increasing influence of women in society, this is changing, and men are seeing the value of relationships over things. Perhaps.

If it is the case that the "human face" we seek on our technology consists at least partly in a recognition that we are interdependent, then our empirical work, our work on models and theories, should surely focus on that interdependence. Our most urgent work is in understanding communities, understanding how communities form, how they are maintained, how they grow and change, how the individual fits within that community.

To refine our tools and technologies, let us understand ourselves not as individuals but as interlinked beings, as creatures of the network, creatures of community.