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An Introduction to Network Weaving
This practical guide is useful for individuals or groups interested in gaining basic skills to improve the effectiveness of their networks. 150 pages. Spiral bound for easy use. - See more
156 pages, Spiral-bound
Published January 1, 2013
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January 12, 2022
This provided a solid overview of network weaving from the author's perspective. I appreciated the clear delineation of roles that network weavers play, and the emphasis on needing multiple network weavers to build a successful "smart" network. So often I find that networks rely on one person as the weaver and that person has so much on their plates that they aren't thinking intentionally about building other weavers (I'm guilty of this too), and this handbook made it clear the value and even necessity of having multiple people weaving within the network.
A few things (small and big) bugged me about this handbook. On the small side, I felt like some of the language choices were both silly and overly complicated. Particularly, "twosies" for pairing up people for a task or small project. Ick. I feel like this slipped into network jargon at various points, which was totally unnecessary.
Bigger pieces that I thought were missing: there was no discussion about decision making, which is so critical to thriving networks. The section that compared organizations to networks dismissively wrote off organizational decision making as "consensus" (flat-out untrue in most organizations), and just implied that because in networks decisions are made in small groups that it isn't something to dwell on. Articulating a clear and transparent decision making process is critical for any group you belong to, network or organization. There also was not a lot of helpful information about overcoming power dynamics, and no discussion about how race and/or white supremacy plays out in networks. Granted, this was written before most people were thinking about how white supremacy impacts our daily work, but it would still be useful to see more information about this. I know that this was an extraordinary effort for one author to pull off, but I wished that there was a larger variety of case studies, and more detailed case studies, to help illuminate how to overcome challenges around network weaving. I didn't find most of the examples included to be particularly useful.
I look forward to skimming the full Network Weaver Handbook now that I have access to it to see if it addresses any of the challenges raised above. Still, I found this useful, and will revisit the worksheets and reflection questions as I continue building networks in my work.
A few things (small and big) bugged me about this handbook. On the small side, I felt like some of the language choices were both silly and overly complicated. Particularly, "twosies" for pairing up people for a task or small project. Ick. I feel like this slipped into network jargon at various points, which was totally unnecessary.
Bigger pieces that I thought were missing: there was no discussion about decision making, which is so critical to thriving networks. The section that compared organizations to networks dismissively wrote off organizational decision making as "consensus" (flat-out untrue in most organizations), and just implied that because in networks decisions are made in small groups that it isn't something to dwell on. Articulating a clear and transparent decision making process is critical for any group you belong to, network or organization. There also was not a lot of helpful information about overcoming power dynamics, and no discussion about how race and/or white supremacy plays out in networks. Granted, this was written before most people were thinking about how white supremacy impacts our daily work, but it would still be useful to see more information about this. I know that this was an extraordinary effort for one author to pull off, but I wished that there was a larger variety of case studies, and more detailed case studies, to help illuminate how to overcome challenges around network weaving. I didn't find most of the examples included to be particularly useful.
I look forward to skimming the full Network Weaver Handbook now that I have access to it to see if it addresses any of the challenges raised above. Still, I found this useful, and will revisit the worksheets and reflection questions as I continue building networks in my work.
Displaying 1 of 1 review