Spot on, Harold.

yesterday at lunch two guys who designed and built a hybrid wiki / CMS system (nice one called ThoughtFarmer) asked me "how do you design a network ?"

I said "You don't"

What I suggested happens is that there is a purpose (to address a thorny problem or an issue), and you instantiate a focus on creating positive, effective results (say with a blog or a wiki or some such thing) and then the network begins to fill in ... if the issue is clear and attracts peoples' interest, passion and energy, the necessary and useful information finds the nodes and the network begins to spread and fill in, etc.

Here's Dave Snowden on the same issue .. fits nicely IMO with the wirearchy definition ...

"This included thoughts on altruism, and the way that we manage new meetings. Fascinating stuff as well on the way we punish people who do not pull their weight. It occurred to be that the blogosphere is much closer to that tribal, family based form of living in which obligations and transparency are a key part. Maybe that is why it works?

I think it is also the reason why I am resisting (on another list serve) any attempt to say that a hierarchy is a network. It seems to be that networks evolve, they are emergent, while hierarchies are designed. In effect that are enforced stabilities (and useful as such) whereas networks are fluid. In a hierarchy the entity is the prime unit, the linkages secondary; in a network the linkages are prime, the entities secondary and fluid."