Kia ora Harold!

I'm with you on this. I was told recently by a prominent educator that communities emerge out of networks and that they (communities) were the logical progression. But it's not as simple as that. The description seemed to be as simple as starting up a brew for some home-made beer, that given the correct ingredients, the fermentation process leading to a desirable product was inevitable.

It is not so with CoPs. It's not so with so-called online learning communities either, yet many educators seem to believe that by simply putting a learning network in place, it will all happen - and without waving a magic wand.

I also concur with you that complex is confused with complicated and that they are often thought to be the same and are treated as such. If the difference between the complicated system like what's required to put on a TV show and a complexity system such as the navigable characteristics of a flock of birds is not recognised, we have a concept problem.

However, there is nothing really new in terms of concept though. Back 40 years or more it was believed that an ecosystem could be easily controlled, that it obeyed the behaviour of a complicated system that had the potential of achieving equilibrium, such as a chemical reaction under controlled conditions. We now know otherwise - that an ecosystem is in fact complex. It's not simply more complicated.

Different than that. It has a new and almost capricious quality and that it appears to have a mind of its own. In fact, that's not far from reality.

Political systems are similarly endowed with such complex characteristics, and these have been studied, almost exhaustively, for much longer. Similarly, living organisms and in particular their colonies, possess all these characteristics of emergence and adaptability.

Given well over half a century of accumulation of human knowledge on complexity, in many and diverse forms, it is amazing that in 2009 some of us still fail to recognise the characteristics of complexity systems when we're confronted with them.

I apologise for the length of this comment - but it's complex :-) .

Catchya later