[Update: Fixed the images] I have read several pieces recently that talk about a shift from "traditional" forms of doing work or being organized to a "networked" form. Two of these are the 2012 State of Community Management report from The Community Roundtable and Anne Marie McEwan's discussion of the Learning Workplace. Go read the pieces to see if you see similar things in your mind.
Both of these contain the models that caught my eye. Maybe it was because I saw both of these in proximity to one another that it sparked a thought for me. The Community Roundtable has their Community Maturity Model, and Anne Marie McEwan has the Smart Work Framework. I have seen other pictures and discussions of how people and communities work together, and this idea of moving from single-actors and highly structured through a transition and into life in the network is very interesting to me. Even some of the discussions of Tribal behavior suggests that the highest level of interaction are those where the entire tribe is working together for higher purpose, rather than just for themselves. In the context of this reading, I hear "network" again.
Where else do you see networks as a stage of maturity or a step in progress of development? What comes after "network" or "hyper-network?"
[I found the Anne Marie McEwan piece via Harold Jarche.]