In reply to Simon Bostock.

Gilbert hits the nail on the head here: "Wirearchy and many of the discussions in this blog have the potential to create the intelligent organization but these semi-neural networks do have to be trained. And training the nodes is different than training the whole."

Not only do nodes need to be competent but the connections between those nodes need to work. That means "training" the network. Training meaning doing work and reflecting on how that work was done. I see this as a positive move in getting the organization to work better. The military knows this because it spends much time and resources on collective training, even though all personnel are individually trained. Few civilian organizations can conduct collective training because they are too busy getting work done.

This is the challenge for the networked organization; learning as we work and working as we learn.