My expectations about this theme were not high: I thought it is only ‘concept play’ to say network means all good and groups are ‘only groups’. Now I have been sitting 4-5 hours with my computer reading and listening the presentations of this week in CCK08. This resonates again, really. I met many thoughts of my one and learnt a lot new ones.
Stephen said: “People don’t follow, they don’t do what they’re told in a network. They interact. They make their own decisions, but not completely independently all on their own, not all by their lonesome. They interact with other people. But they make their own decisions.” That is what I love and what is necessary to me, feel free. And it happens in voluntary networks, for instance here.
Groups were defined as distributive: money, information, power, everything flows from the center, an authority, and it’s distributed through the members. OK: that the world were we must live everyday. I escape it to CCK08 course 
I used to say to my colleagues that computer (internet) includes all, the whole world and I am free when using it.
Very interesting was the discussion about reason and passion/ emotion. A copy from Stephen again: “To put it most simply, groups are based on passion while networks are based on reason. Groups meet our need to belong and to survive, while networks meet our need to connect and learn and to know. In a group, passion drowns out reason, in a network, reason drowns out passion.”
Now I agreed with George: it is not so simple. There are not different people participating in groups and networks. They are the same, people do not change quickly or are not only reason-led or emotion-led, they are using both. In worklife I often hope that people were more reason-led and behave like adults, but: if you want to create something new, use must find your passion.
Stephen: “But in a network, the knowledge is emergent. The knowledge is not in any given individual, but it’s a property of the network as a whole. Consequently, it’s a knowledge that cannot, does not, exist in any individual, but only in the network as a whole. It’s emergent. It’s more complex in the sense that it is able to capture and describe phenomena that are not simple like cause and effect, but complex like the nature of societies or the nature of the weather.” Ownerhip of learning or knowledge is something I have to consider further.
How can we balance the emotional need for the group and the reason for the individual. Is it enough to simply be aware of the potential tyranny in groups? I guess that’s all we can achieve - awareness. – Someone asked this wise question in a comment and I agree with him: this is network knowledge.
