The current focus on 'social networking' might make us think we should spend most of our efforts warming up distant relationships and creating new ones. However it would be a big mistake to neglect the relationships we already have. We can learn a lot about relationship ecosystems from Jim Henson the inventor of the Muppets.

Auren Hoffman, chief executive of Reputation Technology company Rapleaf, writing for BusinessWeek, reviews how the current presidential candidates have become exceptionally adept at "microtargeting" persuadable voters and in using the latest social media software to go beyond seeking traditional support ("give us your money and vote") towards also seeking active advocacy ("call three swing voters").

Ken Thompson, author of Bioteams and The Networked Enterprise, gives a 25 minute introduction to bioteams and describes how it can be applied to make social networks, fan groups, virtual communities and business networks more agile, intimate, satisfying and sustainable. The presentation also addresses todays big question - "How do you get engagement in a large group?"

What are the key requirements for social software to create social environments and communities that can become self-sustainable? Ken Thompson and Robin Good suggest the answer can be found in the ground-breaking "theory of living systems" developed by two famous Chilean biologists and referred to as autopoiesis.

I have been checking out Agna a neat little free social network analysis (SNA) tool which runs on both PCs and Macs (on top of Java). Agna allows social network data (directly input or imported from external systems) to be displayed, manipulated and analysed graphically in a number of ways/styles and is very easy to install and use. Agna is a great way to get into SNA.

As 9 out of 10 networks fail, including social networks, virtual communities and business clusters, I decided to start developing some “Sustainable Network Model” techniques to predict if a network has the necessary ingredients before huge amounts of effort are expended in vain.

Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best – in this case automatically ‘triaging’ inbound email by user defined importance. SNARF allows the user to design their own personal email importance criteria such as the "number of emails sent to me in the last month".

I discovered a great site Visual Complexity for anyone interested in network visualization with the aim to leverage a critical understanding of different visualization methods, across a series of disciplines, as diverse as Biology, Social Networks or the World Wide Web.

We often have in our head the stereotype of the brilliant but solitary artist or writer who cannot, or will not, work with anyone else but is this the whole story on creativity and innovation?

The current focus on ‘social networking’ might make us think we should spend all our efforts warming up distant relationships and creating new ones. However it would be a big mistake if we neglected the relationships we already have. We can learn a lot about relationship ecosystems from Jim Henson the inventor of the Muppets.