Guess who's coming to networking?

Informative piece ("How Obama Tapped Into Social Networks' Power") by David Carr - with one of the best set of lead-in paragraphs I've ever seen - in today's NY Times explains how a certain politician used social networking to...well, become the most powerful person in the world:

In February 2007, a friend called Marc Andreessen, a founder of Netscape and a board member of Facebook, and asked if he wanted to meet with a man with an idea that sounded preposterous on its face.

Always game for something new, Mr. Andreessen headed to the San Francisco airport late one night to hear the guy out. A junior member of a large and powerful organization with a thin, but impressive, résumé, he was about to take on far more powerful forces in a battle for leadership.

He wondered if social networking, with its tremendous communication capabilities and aggressive database development, might help him beat the overwhelming odds facing him.

“It was like a guy in a garage who was thinking of taking on the biggest names in the business,” Mr. Andreessen recalled. “What he was doing shouldn’t have been possible, but we see a lot of that out here and then something clicks. He was clearly supersmart and very entrepreneurial, a person who saw the world and the status quo as malleable.”

And as it turned out, President-elect Barack Obama was right.

If you haven't been to the site that spawned so much self-organizing while still maintaining clear sense of purpose, you must. Jeff and I have been studying networks and social movements for almost 30 years and, frankly, nothing compares with this. Here's the  formula:

+ clear PURPOSE with measurable results carried out by
+ interdependent, self-reliant PEOPLE with access to
+ multiple LINKS fostering trusting relationships that
+ cross boundaries of space, TIME, and organization

The essence of networking. And collaboration. And virtual teams.

Well done, maties.