Articulating the Value of Networks – POP Up Session Recap
POP Up sessions are a space for network practitioners to dialogue about Problems of Practice.
In our inaugural POP Up session on May 21, 2025, we explored how networks offer a powerful approach to navigating complexity by creating space for diverse perspectives to come together. Through convening, networks help participants see a broader picture of the system, identify key patterns, and better understand where change is needed. This shared insight enables collective action that can amplify healthy dynamics and influence the system’s overall trajectory. In essence, networks create value by serving as a forum where stakeholders actively shape how the wider system learns, adapts, and evolves over time.
POP Dialogue
What challenges are you experiencing with "expectations" or misunderstanding the value of your network?
Summary:
Practitioners expressed difficulty in aligning expectations of network participants with the actual value and structure of their networks. A common theme was mismatched perceptions. What the network offers may not be what individuals expect to receive—particularly those who are less engaged.
Engagement gaps: Several noted that non-participating members often express the most dissatisfaction, creating tension and frustration.
Value can be invisible: Many grapple with how to communicate the intangible or emergent value of networks—like trust, care, and relationships—which are essential and hard to quantify
Trust and readiness: Building trust and a co-creative mindset among members is foundational for healthy networks, but some network participants arrive unprepared for this kind of relational investment.
Networks—priceless: When exploring membership fees, practitioners note the disconnect between people’s experience of value and their willingness to contribute financially. The value of network participation is difficult to translate into a specific financial amount.
More than a checklist: Networks are complex living systems to nurture, not complicated problems to solve. Network cultivation requires ongoing learning and nuanced relationship building. The emergent nature of co-created value is hard to capture by simply listing network offerings.
What approaches help you communicate the value of your network?
Summary:
Practitioners emphasized the need to communicate network value through stories, experiences, relationships, and relational accountability rather than through traditional metrics.
Relational value: The feeling of being seen, supported, and connected is a core part of network value. Regular interactions, follow-ups, and informal check-ins signal care and build trust.
Storytelling: Using narratives to illustrate members’ journeys helps make the intangible value of networks more tangible and compelling.
Participation = value: Many highlighted that the value of a network depends on how people show up and engage, and this message needs to be conveyed more clearly.
Making the invisible visible: Efforts to frame network health, emergent action, and flow as legitimate forms of impact are key to helping others grasp the purpose and power of networks.
Mindset shifts: Communicating the network’s purpose involves helping audiences shift from seeing networks as transactional to understanding them as transformational, with fluid, trust-based forms.
Inclusive language: Experiment with language and metaphors to make these ideas accessible to audiences who may be less familiar with relational work.
Co-Created
A compilation of useful resources and inspiration shared by practitioners.
Next Session
Mark your calendar for our next POP Up Session, and share the invite with leaders working as changemakers for impact through systems change, foresight, collaboratives or networks!
Wednesday, July 16, 2025
16:00 SAST / 17:00 EAT / 10:00 EST / 14:00 GMT / 07:00 PT (90 minutes)
Topic: Network Washing & Dealbreakers