It is fascinating for me to actually read into the different theories behind networking as it is an area that I was previously unaware of. How interesting it is that networking has, through previous research and presentation, been separated into different methods to be tried and tested and potentially greatly used by network professionals.
Cooperation
The Oxford Dictionary defines cooperation as:
1. The action of working together to the same end;
2. Assistance, especially by complying readily with requests.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/cooperation
When I think of cooperation, I think about working harmoniously with another person or within a group of people. I think about successfully communicating and working towards a common goal. I think about the wider picture in terms of political, social, cultural cooperation. It is a universal mechanism that is fundamental to the function of our world.
Cooperation has to be a two-way thing which may result in mutual gains or one party exploiting another to achieve a better outcome. Robert Axelrod explains this well in his written research 'The Evolution of Cooperation'. He analysed players using the game 'Prisoner's Dilemma' finding that TIT FOR TAT, "merely the strategy of starting with cooperation, and thereafter doing what the other player did on the previous move" (Axelrod, 2006, p 8), was the most widely used strategy. For Axelrod, this proved that "cooperation based solely on reciprocity" (Axelrod, 2006, p 8) was completely achievable and could be transferred to local, regional, national and international situations.
Cooperation is at its most easily obtainable when the parties are willing to accept no more or no less of what the other party is suggesting. There is nothing more pleasing than having simple, easy and effective cooperation with another person, a business, a company etc. Without such uncomplicated cooperation, we can feel inconvenienced by those who we are in communication with. We can perhaps feel as though we have been unjustly treated, especially is the other party benefits more so from the situation.
In terms of actively running your own professional network, successful cooperation with those within your sphere of contact is absolutely essential. In professional practice, it is rare that we will make it far without cooperating with those who can support and help us along the way and offer valuable input to our work. For me, I feel that my level of cooperation within my professional network is at a good level. I make an effort to keep in touch with those who play an important part in both my professional and my personal life. However I do wish to make more of an effort in actually commenting on other individuals' blogs so that my opinions can be voiced and I am immersing myself in different ideas and concepts. I am also aware that in order to advance my career, it is important for me to get myself out there and set up news ways of communication with other professionals. This will enhance both the quality and the resulting personal and mutual gain from cooperating successfully within the professional world.
Affiliation
We all like to affiliate ourselves with other people. It is a part of human nature that we like to form relationships and craft a network of love, friendship, help and support around us. We all have to have someone that we can trust in and rely on in order for us to mentally function and deal with the world around us. We are social beings and it is not often that we will go a day without affiliating ourselves with another individual. I struggle to think of the last time that I either saw or spoke to no-one in a single day - it's a truly hard thing to do and one which we do not like to familiarise ourselves with regularly.
Our fundamental desire to affiliate varies from person to person. Some are more dependent on people than others; some people are naturally more private and reserved; whereas others are openly communicative and confident enough to make affiliations with greater ease. Levels of affiliation and privacy can be measured using two different methods. These methods are highlighted in Richard Crisp's and Rhiannon Turner's book 'Essential Social Psychology' and are as follows:
Privacy Regulation Theory
"...argues that our ideal level of privacy (as opposed to sociability) fluctuates over time, influenced by two principles. According to the dialectic principle, our desire for privacy (versus affiliation) can vary from being open to others or closed off to others, even in the space of a few hours. We also operate by an optimization principle, where we try to align our desired level of contact with our actual level of contact with others. If we have too little contact, we feel isolated, but if we have too much contact, we feel crowded."
(Crisp and Turner, 2007, p 323)
It is interesting what can be gathered from this theory. The fact that we, as human beings, experienced feelings of both over-crowding and isolation that are completely relative and subjective. Our environment, the people we are with and even the emotions that we are experiencing at the time can all influence whether we long for affiliation or privacy at different times throughout the day.
Social Affiliation Model
"This model proposes that rather than showing wide variations in our need to affiliate, we operate according to the principle of homeostasis. This is the idea that people control their level of contact with others to keep it stable and as close as possible to a desired level."
(Crisp and Turner, 2007, p 323)
The social affiliation model points out that we, being the complex beings that we are, can control our level of contact with others and perhaps subconsciously. Those with an innate sense of homeostasis are likely to feel the most comfortable in any given situation as they have assessed, maybe beforehand or during a situation, how affiliated they wish to be with those around them.
As well as the two methods emphasised above; biological, social and cultural factors also have an effect on how much we may choose to affiliate ourselves with others. An individuals central nervous system can determine how great the need is to affiliate with others. It has been shown "that introverts are higher in arousability, the degree to which stimulation typically produces arousal of the central nervous system, than extroverts" (Crisp and Turner, 2007, p 324).
I have been thinking about to what extent a person would wish to affiliate themselves with others in their professional network. How do you maintain enough distance that it remains professional, but also enough affiliation so as to build a professional relationship based upon trust and mutual cooperation. I think that it is all about being a considerate, communicative, reasonable, fair and approachable person. If you had regular contact with a colleague who you found to be irrational and therefore intolerable, you would struggle to work well with them and perhaps find that your own work suffers as a result. However if you found yourself working with an individual who maintains the qualities listed above, you are far more likely to enjoy your work, be successful in it and form relationships on the basis of both satisfying and worthy affiliation.
Social Constructionism
The world and objects in the world may be in themselves meaningless; yet they are our partners in the generation of meaning and need to be taken seriously.
(Crotty, 1998, p 44)
I found this concept at first a bit tricky to grasp until I honed in on how we, as humans, put our own meaning to the world and the objects within it. We each individually see the world through different eyes and therefore have something new, something different to offer to the world around us.
In Michael Crotty's 'The Foundations of Social Research: Meaning and Perspective in the Research Process', we are informed that "when the mind becomes conscious of something, when it 'knows' something, it reaches out to, and into, that object" (Crotty, 1998, p 44). In other words, we form conscious relationships with the objects around us in our effort to understand them, use them and work with them. Think of this in terms of your professional network. In order to maintain existing and create new professional networks, we must be able to reach out, interact and form cohesive relationships with previously unknown objects. Our world is filled with things that we know very little about and so I am all for putting yourself out there; do not be afraid to engage with others and to your network.
Crotty also draws upon the idea of intentionality meaning (in terms of constructionism) "referentiality, relatedness, directedness, 'aboutness'" (Crotty, 1998, p 44). When I first saw the word 'intention' in Crotty's research, I immediately linked the word to ideas of purpose or deliberation. Yet in this case, being intentional means to be able to relate to something in the world around you; to direct your attention to it and learn about it. Again, this is such a useful skill to have when working amongst other professionals as it makes you stand out as someone who can be confident, innovative and purposeful in their work.
Connectivism
The theory of Connectivism attempts to express how a person learns. It holds that learning is a socially enacted process which, instead of addressing the learning that occurs externally to us (e.g. learning stored by technology), looks at learners who "create knowledge as they attempt to understand their experiences" (Driscoll, 2000, p 376). George Siemens in his article 'A Learning Theory for the Digital Age' comments; "Learning needs and theories that describe learning principles and processes, should be reflective of underlying social environments" (Siemens, 2004, p 1). In other words, the world around us completely influences how we learn and therefore affects the shape and content of our network.
We learn new and refreshing things every day making learning "a lasting changed state...brought about as a result of experiences and interactions with content or other people" (Siemens, 2004, p 3). This sounds very much like how a network functions. What we learn is constantly changing due to those who are surrounding us and in what environment we find ourselves. Our networks continually expand engulfing more content and more contacts with their own ideas, theories and beliefs. We can never truly stop learning in this world and, as humans, will create knowledge as we experience things throughout our lives which we attempt to understand.
To learn is to interact with content or other people so as to enable us to connect with our network and its "rapidly altering foundations" (Siemens, 2004, p 11). Discoveries are made every single day meaning we need to be vigilant in drawing distinctions between important and unimportant information. It will be a purely based on the individual as to whether a piece of new information may be helpful to them, their work, their life; or not so helpful in which case it is unnecessary adopt it into your network. It is equally essential that, as professionals, we are able to "recognise when new information alters the landscape based on decisions made yesterday" (Siemens, 2004, p 11). If we can notice patterns of change within our network then indeed it is essential for us to successfully manage what new information is causing such changes and why.
Reading through Siemen's article, I have selected a few of the principles of Connectivism that caught my attention:
- Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions.
- Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning.
- Ability to see connections between fields, ideas, and concepts is a core skill.
(Siemens, 2004, p 11)
What stood out to me was that all three of these principles can be related to your own professional network placing, in my opinion, emphasis on the usefulness of having one. I feel that by having a network you are increasing your chances of learning through experiencing diversity of opinions; through nurturing and maintaining connections; and through observing connections between fields, ideas and concepts. Connectivism in this sense can play a hugely valuable part in our professional lives as through it we can grow more accustomed to interacting, communicating and building up a core skill base.
Communities of Practice
A community of practice is a set of relations among persons, activity, and world, over time and in relation with other tangential and overlapping communities of practice. A community of practice is an intrinsic condition for the existence of knowledge, not least because it provides the interpretive support necessary for making sense of its heritage.
(Lave and Wenger, 1991, p 98)
We are all, every single one of us, involved in communities of practice be it in education, work, social clubs, relationships, organizations, local or specialised communities etc. It is through these communities of practice that we learn using a process of engaging in social relationships and co-participating in any given situation or environment appropriate to that community. These type of learning forums are usually more informal, social and often specialised, consisting of individuals who share mutual interests and experiences. Being a member of a community of practice can give you a sense of belonging, a sense of symbolism for what you are involved in. Being able to relate to those around you, uphold each other in your mutuality and build up a community of like-minded individuals is quite a precious thing to have. There is nothing more wonderful than finding a place to go and a group of people to spend time with who, whilst in their company, make you feel valued, heard and cared for.
In terms of learning communities of practice do, in my opinion, excel in encouraging participation and sharing interpretations of knowledge specific to that community. Without participation, learning cannot function, nor can it equally function without sharing knowledge. What communities of practice do with these two essential factors is present them in a way that is more social and therefore human-friendly. As expressed before, we are social beings who can become very disheartened when lonely or without others to spend time with. So by using a community as a platform for learning, we are ticking all of the boxes as we have the opportunity to spend time with others in an often more informal setting, whilst simultaneously expanding our minds and being able to offer our input.
Communities of practice directly expand our network offering us immediate contacts and content to interact with. Immersing yourself in community is perhaps one of the easiest ways of creating a healthy and diverse network through which you can keep in touch with those who you take a liking to; those whose ideas and concepts you found most engrossing; and those you wish to inspire or be inspired by.
To finish, it has been engaging and interesting for me to immerse myself in the various theories of learning. I have enjoyed the challenge of making the connection between what each learning concept has to offer and how you can apply it to your network. I will certainly be looking to expand my communities of practice as I like the idea of being able to learn in a more informal environment where my views are valued. Additional to this, I am rather intrigued by the theories of affiliation and how are relationships with those around us affect how we are as individuals.
Any comments are welcome!
Lil' Blogger
Axelrod, Robert (2006) The Evolution of Cooperation, Preface, Basic Books
Crisp, Richard J. and Turner, Rhiannon N. (2007) Essential Social Psychology (2nd edition) Chapter 11: Affiliation and attraction, SAGE
Crotty, Michael (1998) The Foundations of Social Research: Meaning and Perspective in the Research Process, Chapter 3: Constructionism: the making of meaning, SAGE
Driscoll, Marcy (2000) Psychology of Learning for Instruction, Needham Heights, MA, Allyn and Bacon
Lave, Jean and Wenger, Etienne (1991) Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation, Chapter 4: Legitimate peripheral participation in communities in practice, Cambridge University Press
Siemens, George (12/12/2004) A Learning Theory for the Digital Age, sourced from
http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm (accessed 16/11/2015)
