This infrastructure informed the culture of the Internet's early users--research scientists and university faculty who considered themselves members of an open, knowledge-building community. Some of the e-learning communities with historical connections to the Internet still exemplify the early aspirations of the Internet, offering dynamic contexts where members contribute and learn by participating in a shared process of exploration and knowledge building. In these communities, lines of communication run from any member to any other, coordinated by the interest of each individual and the consensus values and goals of the shared community.

The non-linear dynamics of this environment are challenging the traditional, ordered frameworks of every organization that uses the Internet. Institutional organizers such as the time clock, the attendance roster, and the seating chart--which have long been used to measure, structure, and control society's educational and productive activities--have been dismantled. People work, communicate, and learn across time zones and physical boundaries. Individuals communicate person to person, learning from and informing one another. Knowledge no longer moves in one direction from teacher to student; it grows as communities engage in inquiry and share their discoveries.

The Internet has also displaced traditional mechanisms for creating, controlling and distributing intellectual property. With direct access to an open market, practitioners in the field, engineers at the workbench, or kids on the street can share their discoveries directly with anyone who perceives their value. Knowledge creators may circumvent traditional marketing channels and parcel out new information according to the interests of those who seek it out. For the first time, those who create knowledge have greater power than those who distribute it.

The challenge to e-learning organizations is that they capitalize on these new dynamics and without falling into the traditional marketing practices of manipulation and coercion. Knowledge-seekers should be able to pursue information unhibitied by exploitative tactics. Information should flow uninterrupted according to the preferences of collective users, empowering them to engage in mutual discovery, reflection, and articulation. The most powerful e-community leaders work with and study their learners and invite them to help define the value of the emergent knowledge. In this way, the learning environment is shaped to enable the flow, not constrain it, empowering the individuals who are its source.