It’s a small, complicated world

From a networking perspective (and that is, after all, the Muckety world view), these are fascinating times.

At the same moment, we are confronted with global economic collapse and a potential pandemic.

The language of one crisis echoes the language of the other. Mortgage-backed assets are toxic. Credit default swaps are viral. Bank and business failures are contagious.

Those who comprehend networks have described Bear Stearns, AIG and other beleaguered financial institutions as “too interconnected to fail.”

Those who don’t understand networks have called for the closing of the Mexican border to block the advance of the swine flu. (See Time magazine’s Why Border Controls Can’t Keep Out the Flu Virus.)

We can only hope that the economic crisis ultimately follows a course parallel to that of the illness, where the reality doesn’t appear to be measuring up to early fears.

But the spread of these two contagions illustrates an important quality of networks. They don’t have inherent, immutable magnitude or velocity. Their growth is not pre-ordained. Networks are shaped by their environments, if not always by conscious planning.

In the case of the swine flu, health authorities reacted quickly, before the threat had heated up. With the economy, regulators waited until the pot was boiling over.

In an age of split-second communications, world travel and global trade, the impact of our connectedness is felt on every front. Early, pro-active intervention can change the path and the results of linked behaviors.

Barack Obama, America’s first Internet president, understands this better than most, having adroitly managed social networks to amass dollars and votes during the 2008 campaign.

It’s self-serving for Muckety - a site that focuses on relationships - to say that it’s time to pay closer attention to the phenomenon. But it’s nonetheless true.

In a connected world, government, business, NGOs and ordinary Joes need to better understand networks, and they need to collaborate more closely in managing them.

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• Switzerland scores a big gain on UBS deal - August 21, 2009
• Chicago Muckety: Methodology - May 22, 2008
• GM on a path to complicated bankruptcy - May 28, 2009
• Dr. Richard Besser reassures anxious nation on swine flu - May 1, 2009
• Muckety mover - Glenn Beck tries to make a connection - August 12, 2009
• Columbia’s Lee Bollinger: minister without portfolio - October 19, 2009
• Muckety this! Tony Blair to Blue Man Group - February 10, 2009
• Mark Rachesky moves up in the world after leaving Icahn - May 10, 2008
• Red states and blue states reach fever pitch - November 4, 2008
• In an Absolut World, you can be Kanye West - July 7, 2008