I REALLY like this distinction. It's a great metaphor to distinguish between 'friends' and 'associates'.

It seems that this book has a lot of heady exploration, which I personally love. However, in terms of exploring these kinds of things I like a more bottom-up approach. A few years ago I read a book "Where Angels Fear" by Gregory Bateson and his daughter Mary Catherine that explored the question "what is sacred" or "what is the structure of being sacred". I'm pretty sure that you'd enjoy it.

The problem isn't that they're afraid to let go, the problem is that 1. its hard and 2. they don't know what to let go of and 3. they don't know how to train the people to take over the responsibilities that they have. I'm currently re-reading the book Emprint Method: A Guide to Reproducing Competence by Cameron-Bandler, Lebeau and Gordon. The section I'm in is currently talking about time-frames, criteria and their satisfaction. To delegate properly, a manager has to be explicit about their exact criteria for evaluating just about everything they'd like to delegate. On top of their already busy jobs . .. give 'em a break. And, some just like the power.

Hernando De Soto in The Mystery of Capital explains why the 3rd world is poor: because they operate in an "extra-legal" economy. Basically, most of their commerce is 'off the grid', or 'on the darknet'. The difference between a 'darknet' and an 'extralegal economy' is that the darknet may still have (if i understand you correctly) a networked way to exchange information. In the formation of the US (as well as why Japan and Germany flourished after WWI) there was the presence of what he called "an integrated property system". Which means that we can all find out who owns what piece of land. Contrast that with constant revolutions, cocaine gang raids and despots, it is impossible to borrow against assets (i.e. raise capital) to do good business. In proposing a 'darknet' it seems like you're saying there should be a secondary grid for an alternate economy . . perhaps away from the reaches of BoA and Experian? But if we're to move to an information-based darknet economy, then we need better controls on patents, trade secrets adn the like, otherwise the ideas behind the information will be unprotected. The first thing to do is ban free libraries, then shut down universities colleges and schools. Unless I understand you incorrectly, the logical extension of a 'darknet' is completely asinine if you ask me.

To support the point, that companies and innovation are becoming faster, check out Clockspeed by Charles Fine. To counter the point, that we're on our way to hell in a handbasket in terms of worker disatisfaction in a global economy, check out Shopclass as Soulcraft by Matthew Crawford

I Like what Greg said. I'd recommend two fiction books (and their series) as related to what would happen if . . . may happen . . . Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler (first in series) Firedance by Steven Barnes (last and best in series) [my first post]

Anyway, yesterday I had a delightful conversation about (social) networking and the relationship between infrastructures (rail for trains and food pathways for the slime), platforms (platforms for the trains, interfaces withe the nodes for the slime) and protocols (passenger behavior on trains, shapes of molecules/o-chem for slime). Well, we didn't specifically talk about slime and trains, but I had to explain that the infrastructure of a social network is group identity. Platforms are meetings and conversations, and protocols are the jargon, accent and politeness. Better mind-food than oatmeal.

Who needs SNA when you can just put oatmeal on the floor? lol

creating "conditions to achieve maximum chemistry in a short amount of time" . . . where is the training to think/act on this level?