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Science

Seeing and Tuning Social Networks 76

Posted by michael from the if-a-blog-falls-in-the-forest-does-it-make-a-sound dept.
Lisam writes "Jon Udell, in a fascinating column titled "Seeing and Tuning Social Networks", writes: "New forms of social software are one of the most hopeful green shoots erupting from a still-bleak technology landscape." Software is catching up with what we know about social networks: the greater the reach of your array, the more effective an actor you can be within an organization.In this column, Jon talks with two observers about software that maps social networks and their patterns..."
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Seeing and Tuning Social Networks More

Seeing and Tuning Social Networks

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  • Every so often I'll have a little laugh at people who're unnaturally fearful of new tech of some form - but I try not to poke too much fun. Sometimes though, articles like this one come along and scare me by going waaaay over my head. I want to crawl away somewhere and hide now.

    a grrl & her server [danamania.com]
    • It's not 'waaaay' over your head, just a different context than you're used to. Most of the article is just talking about statistics and their implications... no hard facts or revelations, just kinda like rumors that haven't been verified but might be interesting in the future.

      It's much like talking about cloning, we all know what it means but what are the ramifications to our gene pool? Without recombinate dna how will we evolve? Clones begetting clones begetting clones, where is the fun in that? not to mention the lack of orgasms...

      BTW this isn't 'new tech' it is just old tech on speed... and similar in it's results, ie: premature ejaculation of info that may or may not be relevant.

  • it probably doesnt matter much to you if you are in an office/business/netowrk that doesn't require politics but any big business or univeristy requires that you be if not socialloy skillfull, at least adequate....telling a stupdi user that he is being, well, stupid will stop your career/job very quickly indeed if that stupid user is a dean or VP or something. this is a very underrated aspect of geekiness.
  • Interesting article to read, but this is kinda of an obvious thing.

    You need to make as many social connections as you can. This is especially important in business and when working within a large corporation.
    • I read the article, and immediately thought of http://www.liftshare.com. At that site you can register your journey on a database, and find if anyone near you can give you a lift. Also http://www.friendsreunited.co.uk/, where you can register your schools and workplaces, to find people you met but have lost contact with.

      Surely these are examples of "new instruments that will reveal biological and cultural patterns our senses cannot apprehend"?

    • Why is this "obvious"?

      Say I'm a freak who is hopeless in social situations, but I can code...it seems obvious to me that the business would benefit most by letting me spend my energy on coding, not forging social connections.
      • You have to at least forge enough of a social connection to communicate your ability to code, submit a resume, get hired, and pick up your paycheck. And your ability to pick up a bigger paycheck could be informed by your employer's sense that you could go elsewhere - so the more people that you knew, the more opportunities you would have access to. Additionally, the more people you know, the more things you know - you want to use the standard templates library, right? That's a social network effect.

        • I lost interest in the article -- but not the objective phenomena -- and didn't even finish it, when it became apparent it's bottom line is: trying to find interesting new ways to make dot.com $$ (go ahead; tell me I'm wrong).

          People have to make a living -- but this is ideological -- an irrelevant to many of us.

  • He didn't look very hard before calling it new... (Score:3, Informative)

    by tlambert ( 566799 ) on Saturday June 15, 2002 @03:27AM (#3706880)
    This whole realm is already at least partially mapped out by a number of researchers. The ones referenced in the article are actually the least impressive of the lot, in my experience.

    My personal pick for most notable researcher in this area is Joshua Epstein. He's with the Sante Fe Institute. The best book of the several he's written is:

    Nonlinear Dynamics, Mathematical Biology
    and Social Science (Santa Fe Institute
    Series, Lecture Notes, Vol 4)
    Joshua M. Epstein
    Perseus Publishing
    ISBN: 0201419882

    It presents a number of mathematical models (games theory), including a variant of a Non-linear Richardson called "GloboCop", which does a fairly good job of modelling "core team" based Open Source software projects (IMO).

    There has actually been a lot of work along these lines; the first I ever heard of it was an article in Analog Magazine's "Science Fact" column, entitled "Toward a Science of Psychohistory".

    -- Terry
    • My personal pick for most notable researcher in this area is Joshua Epstein. He's with the Sante Fe Institute.

      He's with the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. ...

    • Actually, the SFI people are also quite new to this business. If you are really interested in learning more about the (large) body of empirical literature on the subject, I would recommend looking at past issues of Sociometry and Social Networks. (The latter now fills the role of the former, which was the primary outlet for such work from the 1930s through the 1960s.) Useful papers also appear in the Journal of Mathematical Sociology, the Journal of Mathematical Psychology, and (more rarely) the American Journal of Sociology. You can find all of the above in your local university library.

      You should also try Wasserman and Faust's (1994) book on the subject. It is showing its age a bit, but remains the best single volume on the subject.

      -Carter

  • But that's my entire business model, and my VCs would crucify me.
  • It is now possible to envision a "macroscope" that presents these invisible but ubiquitous patterns to human perceptual systems...


    Aren't those called Soap Operas?

  • Crap (Score:1)

    by inerte ( 452992 )
    Marketing bs. Software catching up with my network?

    I'm not an actor. Pretend as much as you like, computers don't make mistakes. 1s and 0s do. My software don't pretend to understand people.

    AFAK, the more my software pleases all the people, the more I am a monopoply. Software is a step, so are you free to climb this ladder? Hope so.
    • I'm not an actor.
      The use of "actor" in his context is clearly different to the one you are familiar with.

      Maybe you wouldn't get a gig in Hollywood, but you are indisputably an "actor" in the sense used by Bruno Latour to encompass all humans and whatever other entities might act so as to influence the data/knowledge. Latour's actor's do not even need to have intentions.

      I ran into them in a Philosophy of Science course a decade ago, but nowadays you can just use a Google search [google.com].

  • What we need... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by evilocity ( 304228 ) on Saturday June 15, 2002 @05:06AM (#3707052) Homepage Journal
    What this article points to most of all, at least for me, is the need for better tools to map abitrary dynamic non-hierarchical networks. Social networks, interlinked buearocracies, realms of knowledge (that whole noosphere thing), the internet itself, the list goes on. There are specific projects about looking into one or another of these, but few share the tools they develop to do the analysis, and those that do [caida.org] tend to release things very specialized to whatever they're studying.

    I know I for one am interested in collecting and mapping several datasets, for intellectual and practical gain, but lack the time, resources, knowledge and skill to develop full dynamic network visualization software (preferably in web-friendly form) all by my lonesome.

    So, uh... Hey! You! Open source developers! Get to work, chop chop!

    (to pre-emptively answer the 'why don't you start a project then?' question, I'm just an artist with geek tendencies who can write a little code, and I do mean a little)
    • There is actually quite a bit of SNA software available; check out the INSNA software page [www.sfu.ca] for some pointers. Some of this is free software, e.g., the sna package for the R [r-project.org] statistical computing environment. Of course, most of this software is designed for research purposes (rather than visual excitement), but it is there for those who want it....

      -Carter

      • I guess what I'm looking for is 'visual excitement'. Or rather, output that enables a lay user to pick out patterns and clusters on his/her own, using the brain's built in visual processing mechanisms. I've seen some work on this, but nothing quite mature, and much of it not released even in binary form (one thing [mit.edu] I took particular interest in, for example, is in academic copyright limbo).

        However, there were quite a few things at that link I hadn't found before, and one or two seem somewhat useful to my purposes, though the visual design and interface are somewhat lacking. Those were probably judged as not ever relevant by those writing the programs, but I find it hard to understate the importance of those aspects for something as explicitly visual as information visualization.

        Thanks.
  • I suppose viewing it as a "network" is the only way that most Slashbots will ever understand social interaction.

  • My company has been developing a system based on a similar idea for some months.( http://www.bigattichouse.com/peoplelinking/ )

    The current site shows a web-based network using our engine, but our current software is actually a visual modeller for use by not-for-profits to manage their membership, volunteers, wants and needs.

  • at first i thought that "seeing and tuning social networks" would help me meet REALY HAWT chix0rz! but then i realized it was something else entirely.

    damn.

    my green shoot hasn't erupted from this still-bleak landscape in a lonnng time.

  • It is now possible to envision a "macroscope" that present these invisible but ubiquitous patterns to human perceptual systems so that they would engage our innate ability to perceive millions of leaves as scores of trees...and a forest

    Someone didn't do their homework. Data visualization, network visualization, and social network visualization have been hot topics for a while.

    patents pending

    The usual thing: someone who doesn't know the field patents what someone skilled in the art should know.

    • Re:it's been done before (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      yes, it has been done since 1934 when the first 'sociogram' was drawn by hand. the field grew in the 60s and 70s when mainframes began to crunch matrices to figure out who was best connected. with a pc you can now do this in your bedroom using data from the web: First Monday [firstmonday.org] for academic readings on this topic see: Connections [www.sfu.ca]

  • Social Networks has been pretty slow to come to open source world. One of the few pieces of software I know that uses them is the R project [r-project.org], which now has some social network analysis tools.

    For visualization, though, I'm currently unaware of any open-source tools. Krackplot [cmu.edu] has a free web interface, and there is a simple Java program that uses spring-based algorithms for node positioning, but I know of nothing open-source that uses Krackplot's simulated annealing algorithm.

    In general, social network analysis can be very useful, but it's results are often subject to misinterpretation. For example, a social isolate in a business might be isolated for a good reason (they are doing research, for example), so you wouldn't want to tell them to integrate themselves more. But in general, it's a great tool to get another look at data you would not normally find out about.
  • they are then responsible for it's security. Period. Anything else is just neglegence and will get their pants sued off them.
  • All I can see software like this doing is improving the "networking" of the current lower skilled workers and allowing the incompetant managers to remain in thier positions.

    A skilled manager recognises which of his staff interact with other departments well, he may try to encourage them to interact with another department or manager, he doesn't need software to tell him such things.

    What if Joe in IT's best mate is Bill from marketing, as such they form a good link between the departments, but Joe doesn't interact with accounting as he thinks John lazy and stupid. A skilled manager will pick up on something like this, software and a poor manager may try and persued Joe to network with John to the detriment of the department.
  • What? Don't /. readers have anything +5 Informative/Funny to say about social networks?? Hang on - social networks & /. posters... social networks & /. posters... Oh. I get it now.

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