This network model has become integral to my work since I was first introduced to it by Roland Harwood (then of NESTA in the UK). he used it to talk about the importance of conversations, leading to relationships, then transactions. So much of my work as a facilitator is about people wanting transactions without the effort of conversations and relationships (and then they wonder why the transactions fall over). I've also applied it when mentoring others who want to facilitate - to move from one-to-many approaches to distributed approaches, which are far more robust and do what you explained in your post - they enable to collective wisdom of a group to be used instead of relying on a designated 'expert' or the few loudest voices in the room.