Ran across this book a few days ago, and it imbued me with a sense of urgency in the effort to get more succinct ideas on paper. Grewal begins to make a connection between social systems, protocols (standards), and individual human participation in those social systems. He does not approach it from an energy/flow point-of-view, but rather a traditional materialist one.
Using the examples of the gold standard and the English language to drive his argument, he frames in detail the relation between the individual and the inevitable social network (system) that the individual is embedded in, looking at the dynamic feedback mechanism that occurs between the evolving social system (and the protocols which are its substrate) and human choice.
His analysis of intrinsic and extrinsic values for protocols (and standards) that define network power flows are spot on — along with direct and indirect forces which motivate the adoption of a standard — his framework goes a long way in circumscribing the dynamic between individual and collective and the politics of globalization. Network power arises through the concentrating affect that protocols apply to the various energy flows available to the techno-social system
Grewal, D. S., 2008. Network Power: The Social Dynamics of Globalization, Yale University Press, New Haven.