The document discusses how intranets should be designed with an understanding of social complexity rather than just complications. It notes that human systems are complex with dynamic power structures, interconnected people and technology. This implies that intranets need distributed decision making through diverse networks, learning from narrative fragments, and direct access to real data. Examples of how intranets can embrace complexity include online communities, blogs, enterprise social networks, tagging, and gamification. The document recommends several references that provide more information on managing complexity and the relationship between intranets and complexity.

1. Social Complexity and the Intranet
Richard Hare

2. Organisational Hierarchy

3. Organisational Network

4. “Wirearchy”
“...a dynamic two-way flow of power and authority
based on knowledge, trust, credibility and a focus
on results, enabled by interconnected people and
technology...” - John Husband

5. Exercise
“There are profound implications for the
design of Intranets once it has been
recognized that human systems are
COMPLEX rather than COMPLICATED”
- Dave Snowden

6. Sensemaking: Cynefin
By Snowded (Own creation, own work)
[CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia
Commons

7. Managing complexity
1. Distributed cognition
- decisions made by diverse networks
2. Finely grained objects
- learning from narrative fragments
3. Disintermediation
- decision makers see real data
“...partial constraints, co-evolution of
constraint with agent behaviour...”
http://cognitive-edge.com/blog/entry/3299/the-necessity-of-partial-constraint/

8. Intranets and complexity
1. On-line communities
2. Blogs/blogging/blogspheres
3. Enterprise Social Networks
4. Tagging and folksonomy
5. Rating vs. liking
6. “Gamification”

9. References
“Here Comes Everybody” - Clay Shirky
“The Intranet as a Complex Ecology” - Dave Snowden
“Multi-Ontology Sensemaking - A New Simplicity in
Decision Making”- Dave Snowden
www.wirearchy.com - John Husband
www.gapingvoid.com - Hugh MacLeod
Coursera: Gamification – Prof. Kevin Werbach

10. Thank you
Richard Hare: www.richardhare.com
Twitter: @richardhare