Social Network AnalysisThe Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon

or“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know”

or Who’s in your Network?

DebbieFranTisa

Feb 29, 2008

Defined• Social Networks

– A system of related elements– A map & measuring of relationships and flows between people, computers, and other

information/knowledge entities – Most common are people networks– “Ties”: Migrate data into your network by reaching out– Sociologists– Examples:

• Business, markets, professional associations• Social Network Analysis

– Critical observation of the the relationship elements– See how the structure of the networks influences real world results – N=150 members/network– Examples:

• Social network analysts look at disease transmission, terrorist networks, business networks, diffusion of innovation, formation of companies, tacit knowledge in organizations, communities, the WWW, international

• What difference does it make?– Influence outcomes that drive your business – Head off threats

Purpose

• Identify hubs of knowledge and reveal knowledge gaps across an organization

• Find the “path of least resistance” when lobbying a group• SNA can reveal

– Paths along which knowledge is shared formally or informally– The “strength” of the sharing (how often and to what degree

context is shared)– How central a person is to the network’s ability to transfer

knowledge across functional and organizational boundaries– How knowledge flows across functions, departments, divisions,

business units, and geographical areas in an organization

Where Does the Knowledge Reside In Your Utility?Denise O'Berry. American Water Works Association. Journal. Denver: Dec 2007. Vol. 99, Iss. 12; pg. 44, 3 pgs

Methodology

• Surveys ask people to describe– Who they are connected to– What type of knowledge they share– How often they exchange knowledge– How they feel about the information that is

passed through a source (influence)

Sociogram

www.pepysdiary.com/indepth/archive/2005/09/29/the_pepys_sociogram.php

Sociogram created after study of the diaries of Samuel Pepys, a 17th century diarist who lived in London, England

Who to Know in SNA

• Theorists– S Wassserman & K Faust– John Scott, Social Network Analysis: A Handbook– Noel Tichy, Network Analysis in Organizational Settings – Michael Tushman– Peter Carrington, Models and Methods in Social Network

Analysis– David Knooke– Wouter DeNooy (PAJEK)– ISNAE– Caroline Haythornthwaite– Linton Freeman: Development of Social Network Analysis

• Methods• Approaches

Practice

• Understand a threat (terrorism)– Strategic Early Warning System (SEW)

• Youth gangs

• Children’s peer relationships

• Software: PAJEK (freeware)– Slovenian word for “spider”

SNA and Transfer of Training

• Using SNA to assess transfer climate prior to training:– Transfer climate is critical to a trainee's ability to apply the new

knowledge, skills, behaviors, and attitudes they gain through training back to the workplace.

– Relational barriers to transfer… • can be traced to a nonsupportive organizational climate (lack of

peer and supervisory support) • may cause participants to feel that skills acquired during training are

perceived by others as having little value, thereby giving participants little to no incentive to transfer the learned skills back to the job

– Based on this analysis, measures can be taken to develop strategies to deal with relational barriers prior to training that will facilitate the participant's transfer of learning back to the work environment.

Making Transfer Climate Visible: Utilizing Social Network Analysis to Facilitate the Transfer of TrainingJohn-Paul Hatala, Pamela R Fleming. Human Resource Development Review. Thousand Oaks: Mar 2007. Vol. 6, Iss. 1; pg. 33, 31 pgs

Types of Network Analysis

1. Ego network analysis• Focuses on a particular individual and is structured around

eliciting information about the people he or she interacts with, and about the relationships with those people.

• This form of analysis should be chosen for individuals who are participating in a training program in isolation to their organization, department, or coworkers.

2. Complete network analysis 1. Concerned with all the relationships among a set of

respondents (i.e., entire organization, complete work group), which includes managers, supervisors, and individual organizational members.

Making Transfer Climate Visible: Utilizing Social Network Analysis to Facilitate the Transfer of TrainingJohn-Paul Hatala, Pamela R Fleming. Human Resource Development Review. Thousand Oaks: Mar 2007. Vol. 6, Iss. 1; pg. 33, 31 pgs

Properties a network

• Building blocks for developing and conceptualizing network theory:– Centrality (betweenness, closeness, degree)– Position (structural)– Strength of ties (strong/weak, weighted/discrete)– Cohesion (groups, cliques)– Division (structural holes, partition)

Making Transfer Climate Visible: Utilizing Social Network Analysis to Facilitate the Transfer of TrainingJohn-Paul Hatala, Pamela R Fleming. Human Resource Development Review. Thousand Oaks: Mar 2007. Vol. 6, Iss. 1; pg. 33, 31 pgs

Social Network Analysis & Web 2.0

• User-registered knows networks

• Web-mined collaborator networks

• Face-to-face meets networks

 The semantic Web revisited - all 15 versions »N Shadbolt, W Hall, T Berners-Lee - IEEE Intelligent Systems, 2006 - wwwbruegge.in.tum.de

 Spinning Multiple Social Networks for Semantic Web - all 4 versions »Y Matsuo, M Hamasaki, H Takeda, J Mori, D … - Proc. AAAI, 2006 - miv.tu-tokyo.ac.jp

“Web 2.0 is a knowledge-oriented environment where human interactions generate content that is published, managed, and used through network applications in a service-oriented architecture.”

– Dario de Judicibus, IBM Social Networking Analyst

Resources

• Websites– Definitions

• Journals/Articles– Hyperlink Network Analysis– Distance Learning

• Books: On how SN analysis • Software: PAJEK or Sociogram or FAS.at

OneSite, UCINET 6

Exercise

• List 40 contacts– Not family– Describe how you met them