I happened to catch CSI Miami on TV last night when one of the characters in a class on 1990 reunion boosted that he wasn’t intimidated by the school star quarterback as his ‘network was bigger’. So does size matter with networks? Is it the person with the largest RSS aggregation, the longest blogroll the winner? The common assumption appears to be a resounding yes, though looking at it through complexity eyes maybe there’s another way of looking at connection. One which puts the emphasis on the potential to connect rather than the accumulation of nodes on a network. Less is more with networks? Well, I guess in simple elite terms the rich have always know that. But that’s not what I mean. I mean the ability to focus on the potential for networking, rather than the size of the network whether large or small.
Category Archives: Complexity
Why NICE is in need of a re-fit?
Just read the very timely HSJ magazine piece (‘Why NICE is in need of a re-fit’) scrutinising NICE and discussing the public criticism it’s come in for over Herceptin and new guidance. And yes, it includes scrutiny of its public health remit, following the merger with the Health Development Agency (HDA) in April 2005. Well, if that’s not enough meat to chew on here’s the text of the email I sent to NICE chief executive Andrew Dillon in response to the staff merger consultation document.
Being a positive systems-minded kind of a guy I also wanted to reproduce my notes to NICE’s Magnus Anderson at the time of the merger on the implications of the different cultures of the two organisations for the merger. The response from Magnus was welcoming, though one line now jumps out at me: “It seems to make sense to consider cultural issues in the light of the overall structure and strategy – rather than the other way round.” It’s that old ‘systems first, people second’ syndrome (aka ‘fat finger syndrome’) is it not, which can contribute to systematic failure if you’re not careful? Surely culture and structure/strategy should ideally be co-designed in tandem? Anyhow all this contributed to my own ideas on ‘social complexity’.