Networking for academics (and others)

Networking on the Network: A guide to professional skills for PhD students by Phil Agre.

I have read probably dozens of articles and books on Networking, some very good, some only so-so. Thanks to the power of Del.icio.us I found this article by Phil Agre earlier this evening.

To quote an extended passage, relevant not just to a PhD student embarking on an academic career, but to anyone (especially anyone attending MeshForum):

(2) Networked individualism

Let us take the concept of an invisible college a step further. Imagine a vast diagram of all the professional networks in the world of research. In this diagram, everyone will be connected to everyone they know. Abstract as it sounds, such a diagram can actually be drawn with reasonably accuracy by following the citations in their published work. The analysis of these citation links is called "bibliometrics", and is a scholarly industry in itself. Throughout this article, I have been painting a picture of the structure of these relationships. When two researchers have become members of one another's professional networks, they maintain a sort of surveillance of one another. They read one another's published work, monitor one another's career progress, hear reports on one another through common acquaintances, update one another in periodic conversations at conferences, and so on. Their relationship has an architecture -- a structure and logic that are dictated largely by the workings of research as an institution.

On one level, the architecture of relationships in the research world has not changed much since the Renaissance. Scholars have always read each other's work, corresponded, traveled to visit one another, cooperated and competed, and so on. So what changes in the world of the Internet, not to mention cellular telephones, cheap air travel, and other technological advances? Those new technologies do not change anything on their own, but they do provide tools that people use to do more of the things that they already want to do. The institutions of research create tremendous incentives to keep in touch with the other members of your professional network, and that's what's happened: people are in much denser and more continuous contact with their professional contacts than ever before. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that we're heading toward a world in which everyone is a constant presence for everyone else. Technologies that are currently under development will propel this trend even further. Digital libraries, for example, will allow everyone to monitor everyone else's publications in real time, and cheap, high-quality video links will make it possible to organize seminars at a distance. While they will not eliminate face-to-face interaction altogether, these technologies will allow researchers to maintain even more continual contact than they do today.

This development is striking, and it counts as a new chapter in the history of the human person. Barry Wellman calls it "networked individualism". Networked individuals (such as yourself) are like air traffic controllers who, by using a video display and audio communications, constantly maintain a mental map of all the planes in their airspace. This effect can be quite tangible when you are reading your daily e-mail, and it can be especially tangible when you are working on a large-scale professional project, like organizing a conference, that requires you to keep track of the status of dozens or hundreds of individuals, or to reach out selectively into the space of individuals in your field to identify the best speakers, authors, referees, or meeting participants for a given purpose. As the world becomes networked, you will have to decide consciously how to manage the blizzard of communications that your network will entail.

Go read the rest to see both Phil's explanation of the "Invisible College" and where he goes next, the "Expanding Universe".