Networks are the fundamental structure of the digital age. One of the things the internet has given us is a data set to understand it (check out Linked for an explanation of how it all happened).

Anyway, I was really excited to see networks written in big letters on the cover of the most recent issue of Forbes.

When I opened it up I was equally impressed, the issue sports articles from names like Metcalfe (of Metcalfe’s law fame: “the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of users of the system”), Murdoch (we all know him), Hurley (you may have heard of YouTube) and DeWolfe (co-founder and CEO of Myspace).

Now it’s a given that I’m a geek and I get excited about stuff like this, but I think this is something much more fundamental. Understanding networks is opening up whole new worlds for us. Social networks, for instance, always existed, but we never had a good way to visualize or understand them properly until the web/social networking sites came along. Bottom line is the better we understand how networks work, the better we understand ourselves (and eventually our brains, which Metcalfe hits on).

If you want a little more network geekiness, check out the presentation I recently gave at University of Montana. It just happens to be what the whole thing is about.