Formatting code for InnovationNetworks
======Innovation Networks======
In recent conversations about innovation, the idea seems spreading that innovation takes place "on the edges of the network" [[http://edge.org/conversation/innovation-on-the-edges (Ito, 2012)]]. //Edges// are clearly not used here in the same sense as in graph theory (as the connections between nodes). Here, it is rather used in the sense that a group of people with a specialized type of knowledge can be seen as a (sub-)network with an edge, a boundary that 'touches' other boundaries. To give an example from science: it was such an edge between biologists and chemists that gave rise to many novel research possibilities in what we now call the 'life sciences'. Intuitively, I imagine such kind of collaboration between 'knowledge networks' more as a kind of overlap (or //intersection//, to use a term from logic), but in the organizational world the terms //edges// (the most adaptive parts of a sub-network) and //core// (the most rigid part, that is least connected to the outside world) seem to have prevailed.
Innovation clearly is a concept that is used primarily to describe the human domain. What I would like to ask from you is: are there examples from other domains where the parts of a network that connect most to the outside world are most adaptive (in some sense) and where there is a central area that is most rigid?
BrightConf
In recent conversations about innovation, the idea seems spreading that innovation takes place "on the edges of the network" [[http://edge.org/conversation/innovation-on-the-edges (Ito, 2012)]]. //Edges// are clearly not used here in the same sense as in graph theory (as the connections between nodes). Here, it is rather used in the sense that a group of people with a specialized type of knowledge can be seen as a (sub-)network with an edge, a boundary that 'touches' other boundaries. To give an example from science: it was such an edge between biologists and chemists that gave rise to many novel research possibilities in what we now call the 'life sciences'. Intuitively, I imagine such kind of collaboration between 'knowledge networks' more as a kind of overlap (or //intersection//, to use a term from logic), but in the organizational world the terms //edges// (the most adaptive parts of a sub-network) and //core// (the most rigid part, that is least connected to the outside world) seem to have prevailed.
Innovation clearly is a concept that is used primarily to describe the human domain. What I would like to ask from you is: are there examples from other domains where the parts of a network that connect most to the outside world are most adaptive (in some sense) and where there is a central area that is most rigid?
BrightConf
