The Global Brain: Your Roadmap for Innovating Faster and Smarter in a Networked World

Chapter 4. Innovation Networks: The Players and the Plays

Think about the last big home remodeling project you undertook. The project probably involved a number of actors—the general contractor, the subcontractors, the architect, the mortgage company or bank, the workers, and the material suppliers. Each of these actors, including you, played a clearly defined role in the project. And to manage the project, you needed to figure out how to coordinate and communicate with everyone. This might have included defining the contract terms, setting out the rules of engagement, and making sure the project stayed on track. A remodeling project, like any collaborative activity, brings together a set of independent players with clearly defined roles, who ...