[nět'wûrk'] noun. A community of purpose sustained by communication.

[Christine Prefontaine]

A network is a community of purpose — a group of organizations and individuals that come together to achieve common goals. Reasons for creating networks include:

Exchange information and learn from one another
People form networks to share ideas, experiences, solutions, and information; to learn about each other’s activities, strategies, and programs; and to identify best practices and innovative ways to address common problems

Coordinate approaches, programs, and activities
Through networks, organizations with common goals can address duplication and gaps, and thereby maximize the impact of their resources

Obtain common funding
Networks can be used to augment the resources of each individual member, or to allocate program funds to a range of organizations

Create new social value
Through networks, organizations can create resources together (publications, tools), implement joint projects or campaigns, develop service-delivery programs, and provide services

Strengthen common identities and interests
Organizations come together to create a collective identity with more reach and credibility, to develop sector standards, or to enact legislation to improve the legal and regulatory environment

Within the telecentre movement, people and organizations form networks to create synergy, increase legitimacy, generate economies of scale, tap into opportunities, and access each other's ideas, learning, and expertise. And of course working as a network is way more fun than slogging it out on your own. (See Floro's blog on this, in Spanish.)

Networks are sustained by communication, which is literally the act of making things common, of sharing. Networks are different from organizations in that the costs typically thought of as “overhead” are core network costs: travel, meetings, events, telephone calls, printing, postage. Likewise, what organizations consider “support tasks” are critical network functions. A few examples:

• Maintaining collaborative tools, processes, and community norms
• Facilitating gatherings, from small steering committee meetings to large events
• Event design, logistics, and documentation
• Synthesis, translation, and dissemination
• Introducing people to each other and nurturing relationships
• Email group, wiki, or website development and maintenance

Investing in communications implies making an ongoing commitment to generating and allocating resources to people and activities. It means taking the time to set up good systems, pull together a team, lay out a plan, and implement it. It means integrating communications into the very fibre of the network and its operations. And it means checking with key stakeholders to see what’s working and what’s not, and to find out how to do it better.

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Network Communications Guide
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