Networks of Networks: Unleashing the Adjacent Possible

At BIF we design human-centered business models for social impact. It’s an exciting time right now for Team BIF as we scale our first self-initiated design, a personalized maternal wellbeing model we named LunaYou to empower Black and Latina women to improve their own maternal health outcomes. 15+ years since I founded BIF, I’ve never been more inspired and energized. We could never have done it without the BIF network. We could never have done it without networks of networks.

Let me start by coming clean on why I’m obsessed with the idea of networks of networks. It’s personal. I’ve long had a simple from-to metaphor in my head to guide me through three, OK maybe four, midlife crises. Personal reinvention always starts with changing your world view. 25 years ago I changed mine along with a new mental model depicting the world rapidly changing from chains to networks. At the time everything I knew and experienced was defined by chains.

Before networks there were chains. Supply chains, value chains, chains of command and for far too many chains of oppression.

I knew I would have to totally reinvent myself, if I was going to thrive and make a difference in a world defined by networks. So that’s what I set out to do, to transform from chains to networks, as the new operating paradigm of my life.