I would just like to thank the many people who expressed their interest so enthusiastically in The Bioteams Practitioners Network and to let everyone know I have their contact details and will arrange a time to talk before the planned launch in the New Year. Also if you missed it here is the link to the original post. Best Regards Ken Thompson

As a result of many requests I am pleased to announce the formation of a Bioteams Practitioners Network. I am seeking Expressions of Interest from potential network Founder Members.

Since publishing the Bioteams book it has become very clear that there are a small number of defining characteristics of a bioteam. For best results you should ensure that bioteams is right for your particular team / group / community challenge. Here is how to check!

Robin Good of MasterNewMedia.org has published a short video clip series where he interviews me (Ken Thompson) about the Bioteaming approach to virtual/mobile teams, networks and communities.

Nature has a way of automatically right-sizing a group to tackle the job at hand. Just like the Russian Matryoshka Dolls (dolls within dolls), small groups link into bigger ones, which in turn link into still bigger ones. In this follow-up article to Why penguins have no commanding officer and Did ants invent the perfect system for communicating via mobile technology?, Ken Thompson writing for NESTA explores what we can learn about teamwork and group/community size from nature's most successful teams.

Are you smarter than a goose? Sure you are -- one on one. But when it comes to working efficiently, you and your colleagues can't touch the gaggle. According to author Ken Thompson, geese and other animals that naturally form groups have a lot to teach us about business. In a theory he calls organizational biomimetics, Thompson lays out the principles underlying nature's management strategies. So what can you learn from a bird or an ant? Take a gander. Katharine Gammon at Wired Magazine reports.

What is the best way to introduce bioteaming into any organization or network? I recommend an Action Learning approach which allows you to evolve your own unique take on bioteaming which takes full advantage of the hidden learning and experiences you and your organization already have about 'natural teams'. Heres an interactive bioteams implementation roadmap to get you started.

To succeed in work environments today, you must be able to work in teams - but they are not your father's teams anymore. Bioteams are the most appropriate ways to think about teams, networks and organizations in today's interconnected world. Nature's teams display four traits that don't naturally seem to occur in organizational teams and that I contend make a huge difference to human performance. Read the full article at THE BPM Institute.

Ken Thompson presented on the topic: "Bioteams: what can we learn from natures social networks" at the NLab Social Networks Conference (19th June 2008) at De Montfort University, Leicester, UK.

Our old friend the spider gets a lot of bad press. For example he/she has been used as an example of the weakness of centralised leadership models versus so-called "leaderless organisations" in The Starfish and The Spider. However spiders can teach teams, enterprises and networks two very important lessons: Strategic Readiness and Appropriate Response.