Holonic Organization

Map displaying the relative Internet connectivity densities across the globe.

Special thanks to Chris Harrison for use of the photos. www.chrisharrison.net

Holonic Social Networking (HSN)

The goal of HSN is to attain in social networking the benefits that holonic organization provides to living organisms and societies, e.g., stability in the face of disturbances, adaptability and flexibility in the face of change, and efficient use of available resources.

The HSN concept combines the best features of hierarchical ("top down") and heterarchical ("bottom up", "cooperative") organizational structures as the situation dictates. This concept can preserve the stability of hierarchy while providing the dynamic flexibility of heterarchies.

Quick references -

Holon: An autonomous and cooperative building block of a social networking system for transforming, transporting, storing and/or validating information and physical objects. The holon consists of an information processing part and often a physical processing part- such as a module of content or a member. A holon can be part of another holon.

Autonomy: The capability of an entity to create and control the execution of its own plans and/or strategies.

Cooperation: A process whereby a set of entities develops mutually acceptable plans and executes these plans.

Holarchy: A system of holons that can cooperate to achieve a goal or objective. The holarchy defines the basic rules for cooperation of the holons and thereby limits their autonomy.

Holonic Social Networking (HSN): A holarchy that integrates the entire range of networking activities from membership, interaction, production, and marketing to realize the agile networking enterprise.

Holonic Attributes: The attributes of an entity that make it a holon. The minimum set is autonomy and cooperativeness.

Holonomy: The extent to which an entity exhibits holonic attributes.

Links:

Holonics forum on Yahoo Groups: Nascent Dynamics ( ) is conducting an open study of Holonics from the perspective of Holonic Manufacturing Systems. The above definitions and references have been modified to suit an application of the methodology for social networking. To access and participate in this research if so desired, please feel free to visit and join the Holonics list serve www.nwlean.net Go to "Open Lean Forums" and register to join the Holonics group. Nascent Dynamics ( ) is the moderator for this group and will approve your membership.

Holonic Knowledge Base: Nascent Dynamics ( ) is experimenting with this social network as part of the research and development of the Holonics methodology. We have created a wiki for Area Light referred to as "The Collective" for the purposes of managing information and resources produced as a result of social networking through Area Light. The concept of collaborative/ autonemous enterprise will be discussed here on this Holonic Organization group. We will be building the corresponding knowledge-base to support our work on the wiki. Please refer to the Holonic Knowledge Base Project Area Light Member Services is the moderator for this group and will approve your membership.

We feel this is an intellectually stimulating way to understand and develop advanced professional social networking skills that are being incorporated into Area Light. Feel free to join us in our research and development or simply follow along with the discussions presented here for your own entertainment.