In IT Jargon, it is called “peer-to-peer communication” when those at the edges of a network talk directly to each other

Peer-to-peer communication is the process which allows computers to trade information between one another. In a peer-to-peer network each computer has equal status and control, is both a “client” and a “server”. Each computer has the same capabilities and either can start to communicate to the other.

Thus independent intelligent devices make their own decisions without the need or delay of using an intermediate, central or “master” controller. Eliminating the master (a single point of failure) improves the system’s reliability and reduces its cost. But this lateral communication still requires some kind of hierarchy to work efficiently.

In theory peer-to-peer networks need no structure at all, but such networks are rare. In an unstructured network each request for information must spread through the network by asking as many peers as possible if they have the data. Popular information is likely to be available in many places but the search for data held by few is unlikely to succeed. There is no relationship between a peer and the information it manages, and there is no guarantee that bombarding the network with queries will work. It merely floods the network with traffic and makes it inefficient.

A structured peer-to-peer network overcomes such limitations by making each peer responsible for certain information and maintaining a table of contents. The network uses this table to keep track of who is responsible for what. When someone wants information, the network looks up who is responsible for that data and directs the search to them. Inquiries are far more likely to succeed.

If it seems odd that hierarchy should aid non-hierarchical communication, consider the Internet’s own Domain Name Service (DNS). This is a basic tool of the Internet, though to a user it is invisible. This is how it works. The Internet needs a code–the Internet Protocol (IP)–to tell it where a message comes from and where to send it. The code takes the form of numbers, like 66.206.193.184. The DNS computers give these codes, called IP addresses, other names that are easier to remember. For example, the IP address 66.206.193.184 is named www.powerdnn.com). Each DNS “server” then transmits this information to all the other DNS servers around the world. Everyone who uses the Internet depends on the DNS hierarchy.

In an intriguing article, called "Improving Capabilities Through Industry Peer Networks" in the MIT Sloan Management Review, Sgourev and Zuckerman highlight the way that managers at smaller regional companies in the United States are using networks of non-competing peers to stay abreast of industry trends and to counter myopic business practices and inertia. They identify five key practices: membership of multiple groups of noncompeting peers, selective admission, face-to-face group meetings, detailed discussion of management issues, and sharing of financial data.

Thus the same concepts of peer-to-peer communication, that have helped experts in information technology to manage the rapidly-changing relationships in distributed computer networks, can help us manage person-to-person communication in the complex relationships of business and the community.