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| | 2010-07-11 | | 
I wonder if a Goldman Sachs executive would spend a night in the house above? After all, they do kind of "own" it. The house, in the Slavic Village neighborhood of Cleveland, had a mortgage that was part of the Goldman Sachs synthetic CDO, ABACUS 2007-AC1. In 2008, the house was foreclosed upon, and still sits abandoned today.
At least the ivy devouring the south side of the building seems happy.
I am writing this in the Red Chimney restaurant, a social hub for the locals in Slavic Village. This place is probably the only thing that has not changed drastically in the last ten years in this neighborhood. It feels very comfortable.
For more details, diagrams, and how we connect the dots between Goldman Sachs and this gold-less neighborhood, see our orgnet.com web site.
Update: Mortgage fraud via "flipping" happens in good neighborhoods also | |
| | 2010-05-14 | | 
I got off Facebook over 2 years ago. I am smiling as others publicly proclaim their freedom the superorganism.
Facebook is currently facing a barrage of negative feedback about its privacy policies and methods. Yes, these are valid criticisms, but they are not Facebook's achilles heel. They have a bigger problem. It is the structure of Facebook that foretells it a fate of AOL -- a popular online site in the 1990s that grew quickly, with great promise and PR, and is now a much smaller collection of speciality sites. Back then AOL was also supposed to be the "new internet", just as some are predicting now that Facebook will be the new WWW.
Facebook, and all other online social networking sites are structured wrong. They are places where we have to go to connect and communicate. That is not how we naturally connect and interact as humans! Their technology does not support our natural and inherent sociology. Yes, we meet people in places and on sites, but once established the relationship does not remain only there.
Facebook is the new land line.
The telephone land line is good metaphor for the future of Facebook. With a land line you had to be "in a place" to receive a call -- at home, at your desk, in the car. If you were not there you missed the contact and you probably did not know you missed it until you returned to the place. Messages, voice mail, beepers and other technology tried to fix the problem, but it persisted.
Mobile technology allows the call, the connection, to go where we are -- the device is always with us. We can make an immediate decision if, and how, we will take the connection. If we decide not to, we know right away that an attempt has been made and from whom. This is how we naturally network -- we decide on the fly, who to talk to, in what voice, and how much to share. I may deal you differently tomorrow than today depending upon the current context.
Putting Facebook on mobile devices does not solve the problem -- it is like adding speed dial to your home phone, onto your mobile device. Facebook does not allow for natural flexibility of human interaction, you and your relationships are ossified in their computer code. In a truly networked world we do not have to go anywhere to connect to others -- we just ping from where we are at and wait for the response from where they are at.
Facebook is still as popular as sliced bread, but many people are seeing it in a new, unflattering way. They have stopped blindly trusting Facebook. The digerati will leave first, and then the later adopters.
Update: So, what I am suggesting is space instead of place. In space there is no definite location, only in relation to everyone else in the space -- you are located by who you are connected to. | |
| | 2010-04-30 | | 
This network map shows the key roles played in the recent mortgage meltdown. We start on Main Street and connect the dots out to Wall Street. The links in the network show the exchange of money and value. One of the unanswered questions of the meltdown is: who is at fault? who is responsible for the meltdown?
Plenty of opinions are battered about. Some blame the poor -- they tried to buy houses they could not afford, they lied on their loan applications. Others point the finger at the "banksters" -- greedy Wall Street investment bankers extracting wealth from the working classes. Additionally there were plenty of "middle men" enhancing the flow between the players at either end of the network. Who was critical to the meltdown?
I approach this map as a social network analyst and my initial hunch is to look for central players. The network metrics of Betweenness and Integration show us that the Mortgage Lender and the Issuer [Wall Street Bank] are key nodes in the subprime network. Each player appears key to each side of the network. The Lender on the left and the Issuer on the right.
Are they playing a game of Ping Pong to drive the flow in the network?
The mortgage lender sells the sub-prime mortgages they have originated, which get packaged as RMBSes -- residential mortgage-backed securities. With the Rating Agencies providing a positive picture of these securities, Wall Street discovers that they can sell them to investors in various re-mixed forms such as CDOs -- collateralized debt obligations. The more Wall Street sells the more they want to sell. The ball goes to the Lenders who excite their part of the network to generate more real estate sales with new mortgages for securitization. Wrapped in new subprime mortgages, the ping pong ball now zooms back to Wall Street . Wall Street excites their part of the network by creating more CDOs, and even synthetic CDOs. Send us more, they demand! And so it goes back and forth at an ever increasing fever pitch -- the ping pong ball becomes a blur. No one wants to stop the game.
Who is to blame? Once the game starts, no one is left out, everyone plays their role and shares the blame. The entrepreneurial mortgage broker on Main Street and the re-mix master on Wall Street are each in their element, but they both hide/ignore information to speed up this dance of doom. Everyone influences those in their immediate network neighborhood. While each player acts rationally for himself; to outsiders, the overall system appears more and more irrational as it builds towards a bubble that will surely burst.
There is no lone culprit. Maybe the system itself is to blame? It was set up to generate positive feedback loops with no monitor of levels or cutoff when things get out of hand. Maybe the Rating Agencies should have had the kill switch? Without overly positive ratings on the CDOs, the Wall Street side of the network would not have gotten as excited. Once the ping pong dynamic got out of control, no kill switch could have stopped the dance.
Another problem I see in the subprime mortgage flow map is network risk. Investors, who are dependent on Home Buyers making regular and timely payments, are separated from them in the network. They are beyond each other's network horizon, the investor's have no idea of the paying capability of the home buyers they have invested in. In networks, any path longer than 2 steps is usually considered "over the horizon" -- one cannot see, nor influence, over the horizon. In networks, distance leads to distortion, delay, and increased risk. The Rating Agencies, whose job as intermediaries is to minimize this network risk, appear to have not their job properly.
We need some way to map and monitor our complex finance systems before they get out of control. Let them operate as open systems but monitor their levels, exchanges, and outputs. As we now map the flow of aircraft from airport to airport, we should map the flow of large transactions from bank to bank. We need a transparent and trackable process so that we are not surprised at outcomes, and are prepared to take action when certain "tilt" conditions appear. | |
| | 2010-04-19 | | On April 16, 2010 the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit against Goldman Sachs alleging securities fraud for selling residential mortgage backed securities [RMBS] the firm knew was made up of failed sub-prime mortgages.
Using our InFlow social network analysis software we linked the failed/foreclosed mortgages from Cleveland, Ohio that ended up in investment vehicles sold by Goldman Sachs. The failed investments were made up of mortgages from all over the country. The map below shows only those failed mortgages originating from Northeast Ohio.
The outer ring on the map [black nodes] are actual properties in Cleveland and NE Ohio with failed mortgages. The next ring, of blue nodes, are the various Trusts that mortgage-lending institutions created to securitize the mortgages and sell to Wall Street. The inner ring of green nodes are major banks that created and/or administered the Trusts and finally the focal point of all inflows is the magenta colored node -- Goldman Sachs.
The customers who bought these financial instruments had not way to fully evaluate the basis [sub-prime mortgages] of what they were investing in. They trusted the intermediary, Goldman Sachs, who they did have a direct relationship with. In networks, distance supports deception and distortion. Network distance also gives Goldman Sachs plausible deniability.
Each major municipality in the U.S. probably has a map of failed mortgages flowing to Wall Street. Goldman Sachs was not the only investment bank selling such products. We have a map for each major investment bank, showing which failed Cleveland mortgages they packaged, and which intermediaries they worked with. | |
| | 2010-04-11 | | 
April 15th is tax day in the USA, and also the publishing date of "Beautiful Visualization" by the O'Ŗeilly empire! I have a chapter in this book on network visualization. The book will be published in full color.
In my chapter, I discuss how to derive network maps from simple data like "the choices people make" and "the events people attend." I apply social network analysis to easily accessible data. There is a lot of relational information in the public datasphere... I show you how to spot those relations, and look for interesting patterns. | |
| | 2010-03-22 | | We often think of our networks as belonging to us, or our group/team/family. We imagine they have an identifiable beginning and end. We want to draw borders to define "yours" and "mine." Yet, in reality we cannot. We really cannot define where my network stops and yours starts... no matter if you are a person, group, organization, or country. We are all intersected and our connections overlap with those of our network neighbors. Boundaries are fuzzy, at best.
Let's look at a simple example. Organizations, whether for-profit, or not-for-profit, usually have a Board of Directors. We can think of this Board as a network that belongs to the organization. All members are linked if they sit on an organization's board together. We might view the Boards of the top 50 U.S. companies like the diagram below -- individual clusters, each belonging to the parent company. The gray links show co-membership ties between the individuals.
Directors are not limited to the number of Boards they can be members of. Board members are limited to the number of Boards they sit on only by time, energy and invitation. Below is an example of a Board member who sits on the Board of two companies. This may be Steve Jobs, who sits on the Board of Apple and Disney.
We now choose a different color for those Directors who sit on multiple Boards. We see how the Boards of the top US companies are actually interconnected in the diagram below. Blue nodes are Directors who sit on multiple Boards.
The blue nodes in the network above are conduits that move information, ideas, and knowledge between the clusters -- they are the intersection where two networks overlap. Contagion between corporations is often based on flows via Boards of Directors. We apply social network analysis [SNA] to this social graph and we see who may be key in this diffusion process. We apply a new SNA metric, I call Awareness [measures potential awareness of a node to what is happening around it (directly and indirectly) based on it's pattern of connectivity]. Those nodes with higher awareness are shown in a larger size in the diagram below.
It is usually beneficial to be connected to those who have a good view of what is going on. Information and knowledge is often shared [intentionally or unintentionally] with trusted others, close by. Information leaks and flows, but never too far. Board members who are connected to other highly-aware Board members, have a higher probability of finding out more -- but the range is limited. Even those who just sit on a single Board can increase advantage by being connected to multiple blue boundary spanners. This is reflected in the diagram below. Node size is derived from awareness of what is happening in the network. Some Boards have greater awareness of what is happening in the corporate world.
This was a simple illustration. The actual network between the Board members will be denser, based on their possible multiple ties -- employment, memberships, and other current and past associations. The full multiplexity of the individuals was not known, nor shown. Yet, we see how even some knowledge of a social system increases our potential to target messages to influence that system. Of course, the better our data, the better our targeting. A telescope may be preferred, but even binoculars provide advantage over the naked eye. And binoculars that reveal what is usually invisible, are even more useful!
What complex social systems do you want to look at, and interact with? What overlaps can you utilize?
Update...
My colleague, Balazs Vedres, calls these intersections between overlapping groups "structural folds". A person who spans a structural hole [Burt] connects two groups but is a member of neither. A person who connects two groups via a structural fold is a member of both! The social dynamics of connecting groups these two ways are quite different. | |
| | 2010-02-17 | | 
About a week ago I put up a simple quiz on TwitPic using David Krackhardt's kite network as focal point. The kite network above shows a small group of people with strong symmetric[two-way] communication links. I asked,
"Where would you plant your msg in this net? Why?"
Several of my Twitter followers immediately answered and then the post was re-tweeted by several friends of mine. One friend sent it out to 30+ "social media mavens" -- none of them braved an answer.
This is a toy problem, yet it helps us think about how information and influence spreads in a human network. When I present this problem during one of my many talks on this subject, the first answer from many voices in the audience is usually "Diane." Then there is a period of silence and a few people sheepishly offer "Heather." Finally some joker in the back of the room yells out "Jane" and everyone has a good laugh.
So, what is the right answer? There are several.
The most popular answer of "Diane" is not a bad answer. The eye is attracted to the hub structure around her. She has the most connections and does reach a majority of the network with a direct connection.
The choice of "Heather" is a good one -- my preference. While Heather has only three direct ties, she reaches everyone in the network within two steps. Diane has several longer paths to reach everyone. Information and influence both degrade with each step in a network. After one step the message begins to grow fuzzy, after two it is becoming very noisy, and after three it is basically useless -- background hum. We might be all separated by six degrees but it is the first two steps that really matter.
Another good answer is "Fernando or Garth". They are between Diane and Heather and can also reach many people in the network quickly. Those that know social network analysis come up with this answer because these two guys have the best closeness centrality.
All of the good choices mentioned above are not guaranteed to get your message passed around even this small network. Just like a forest fire depends on one burning tree igniting another tree, or two, Diane, Heather, Fernando, and Garth all depend upon others to continue passing the message. It is not just the seeded node that matters, but the network neighborhood that the seed is embedded in! And... each node has a different threshold of adoption -- for one topic Carol may be a slow adopter, while Ed may be quick, and vice versa for a different topic/idea.
I am reminded of this song by the Alan Parsons Project -- The Turn of a Friendly Card:
"The game never ends, when your whole world depends,
on the turn of a friendly card"
Or in today's world -- the turn of a friendly tweet!
We have a simple problem, with no simple answer. So, how do you work this?
What happens when we try to scale this to real human networks that have dozens or hundreds of interconnected friends or colleagues in a network like below?
The secret is... redundancy! Yes, redundancy, that concept that we tried to eliminate in the 1990s with untold hours and dollars of business process re-engineering. Some redundancy actually helps networks function better.
In the simple kite network above we would use redundancy to seed the message with Diane and Heather! Some people may not hear Diane today, but will pay attention to Heather tomorrow.
In the real human network above we might need to find a dozen or more places to plant our viral visitor. Social network analysis software can help us discover the best soil for planting!
Update...
So, I tweeted the link to this blog post when I finished writing it: evening Eastern Standard Time in USA [GMT -5]. The response was not great. bit.ly showed me that 25 people clicked on the link in the first hour. The next morning I tweeted the link again and now more of my Twitter followers were paying attention -- by Noon bit.ly reported over 300 clicks. Finally I ran another tweet @ midnight, for all of Pacific folks, and early-risers in EU and RU. This added another 100 clicks accroding to bit.ly.
Lesson learned: It is not only the persons you plant the message with, but also the timing of the message. People pay attention at different times -- especially on Twitter. Redundancy in timing works too. | |
| | 2010-01-04 | | 
What do you see when you look out the window above -- the structures or the sky?
The Gartner Group is a well-known, worldwide advisor on information technology issues. They have been a fan of social network analysis for several years now. Recently, they sent out this press release about how social and organizational network analysis fits into their concept of "Pattern-Based Strategy." Gartner describes their approach as focusing on "business patterns to capitalize on opportunities or avoid disruptions." Gartner is expanding their view -- they are not just talking about Windows® any more.
My partners and I have been analyzing networks in, and between, organizations and communities for over 20 years, and we certainly can attest that what Gartner suggests is true -- the key is in the connections! We have repeatedly found patterns in adaptive and agile organizations that are not present in companies that struggle with similar opportunities and disruptions. We are delighted to see an influential firm like Gartner now looking in this direction and seeing what we see.
One of the interesting things about organizational patterns is that they do not follow a strict recipe or design. However, good network patterns do provide highly similar benefits -- the ability of the human system to learn from and respond quickly to both opportunities and disruptions. The structures [both formal and informal] in Company X may not be the same as the structures in Company Y, but each may be optimizing a pattern, uniquely applied to their situation. We focus on the similar patterns we see across diverse organizations. What do they have in common? These organizations are succeeding because of their ability to exchange information/knowledge, learn quickly, and become aware of their environment -- irrespective of their particular hierarchies or business process designs. It is the pattern of the emergent organization –- what happens in the white space on the organizational chart -– that leads to adaptability and agility, and ultimately to success.
We can show you where your organization or community is on that scale of adaptability/agility and help you adjust your patterns for increased success with opportunities and disruptions.
Lets open up a new window in your organization...
What do you see when you look at your organization -- the organization chart or what goes on behind it?
Picture above is from my favorite young photographer -- Alice Merkel. See more of her portfolio on Flickr.
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| | 2009-12-21 | | After seeing this cartoon by Ed Hall, I started to think about personal networks. What will your personal network activity be like this holiday season?
What will your presence be, after the presents are opened?
Here or There?
Let's look in on a typical family gathered for their holiday celebration. Mom, dad, kids, and grandparents. Where will the conversations be? In the room or outside the room? Local or Global?
With digital tech on the wish lists of all age groups, will each withdraw into our own world, focused on their new device... even while they sit within arms length of their close ones? Or will the conversations span local and global, with everyone in the room sharing what they are seeing/hearing out on the Net? Will the local/global perspective change as the family sits down to their holiday meal? Or will that red-blinking Blackberry be right next to the wine glass?
Will your conversations be with others in the room? In the social network analysis map below the family members all gathered in the same space. Dark red links show who is talking to whom F2F via voice.
Or will your family look like the cartoon above? In the same room, but not necessarily with each other? Each off in their own world? Grey nodes are friends and acquaintances accessible via social media. Blue links show who is interacting with whom via text.
Maybe the outside can be connected to the inside... diversifying the conversation? Interesting items from the periphery are brought into the core conversation.
Think about the digital technology in your family this holiday season... where does it enrich and where does it exclude? How do you get it to include and invigorate? | |
| | 2009-11-30 | | 
Recently, the White House revealed who has visited with members of the Obama Administration and when and how long that occurred.
Above is a network map of the who visited with whom in the White House: Visitor --> Visited. The larger the node, the more visitors received. POTUS is short for President of the United States. The links show only the smaller meetings of less than 1 dozen people in attendance. Our assumption is that you have to be more important to be invited to a small, focused meeting than to a large general gathering. Small meetings tend to reveal personal or business relationships. As we now know, even fakesters can sneak into large social affairs.
There is more data with more connections to be mapped in the White House data, but this map shows what is going on in the thick of things.
Too bad previous administrations did not have the cojones to provide the voting public a peek into the workings of government. Glad to see data transparency on the march!
A more detailed view of all of the players...
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| | 2009-11-22 | | One of the basic building blocks of weaving networks is "closing of triangles". A triangle exists between three people in a social network. An "open triangle" is where there is an opportunity to introduce two people, who do not know each other yet, by a third person who knows them both. A "closed triangle" is where all three people now know each other.
Here we see our friend and colleague Ed Morrison, of iOpen, connected to two of his clients -- the economic development folks in both Lexington, KY and Oklahoma City, OK. He knows each of these groups, but they do not know each other. Much could be learned if both of these groups shared their economic development experiences with each other -- innovation happens at the intersections.
But you can't introduce groups to groups, or organizations to organizations -- it works better by introducing people to people. So, Ed picked two leaders from each group to close the triangle. He picked Cynthia Reid at the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce[OKC] and Lynda Brabowski of Commerce Lexington[CLX]. This triangle is illustrated below.
When Lynda expressed a desire to Ed for CLX to visit another region that they could learn from, Ed immediately knew the answer -- visit OKC, who previously had faced similar issues and handled them very well. Ed, also knew which introduction to make -- a network weaver needs to know WHOM to connect by knowing the people, the groups, and the dynamics involved in the connections that are being made. The closed triangle -- after Ed's introduction -- is shown below.
This was not the end of this weaving opportunity. Ed accompanied the CLX folks on their visit with OKC. During the trip he closed a few more triangles. Ed introduced the CLX group to two of the key architects of the economic blossoming in Oklahoma City, Ron Norrick -- the former mayor that started the effort, and Burns Hargis a key OKC board member. Those closed triangles are below.
The cool thing about closing triangles is that anyone can do it, and you do not need anyone's permission to do it! Close triangles around you wherever and whenever you see an opportunity. You and your community will benefit.
Just do it!
The above was taken from a June 23, 2006 post of mine on the Network Weaving blog. The original thinking on Network Weaving was created by June Holley and I in this 2002 white paper. Enjoy! | |
| | 2009-11-12 | | Inspired by my favorite Talking Heads song: "Once in a Lifetime".
We often wonder "how did I get here?" when we look around and reflect on our personal networks. Where did all these connections come from? Did I do all this? Who helped weave my network? What can I do with these connections? Where can I add more?
I will go through key growth stages of a network that evolved this past decade. Many of the connections have already resulted in creative collaborations. Other connections are just bearing fruit now. Networks are like that -- a new connection does not always bear instant fruit, sometimes the growing season for some links is very long. Yet at the end, the fact that the link is already established, an opportunity is spotted and acted upon using the resources that the link provides.
Many years ago the network looked like this. Two people are connected if they interact with each other as friends and/or colleagues. ONet represents a now defunct on-line group: The Omidyar Network. This was a gathering place to help people discover how they can make a difference.
People on ONet got to know each other from their on-line activity and Jerry introduced Tom to Valdis -- he closed the triangle amongst himself, Tom and Valdis.
Next, Tom introduced Jean to Valdis at a seminar he organized in Boston. Soon after that, Steve reached out to June after doing a web search on "network weaving."
In the next phase, June introduced Steve to Valdis to work on network mapping, and Valdis introduced June to Tom to speak at his next seminar in Europe. Notice as people start "closing triangles" via introductions, the original meeting place for a portion of the group -- ONet -- starts getting pushed to the periphery.
Next, Valdis introduces June to Jean to share similar interests and goals, and after working with Valdis on network maps Steve introduces Daniel, who is also interested in network mapping, to Valdis.
Finally, Jean meets Jerry at another event and the network as it stands today is now in place.
When we make introductions, and close triangles, we are not doing it to merely create new connections. Network weavers usually have a goal in mind when connecting two new people -- a project, a mentorship, a future collaboration. The links between Daniel, Jean, and Valdis were in place several years ago but only this year did they all collaborate around a common project. Jean and Valdis were working on thrivable networks and Daniel was organizing a conference around building networks to help inner-city kids -- all three were going to be in Chicago the same week. After a few emails it was agreed, Jean and Valdis would do a workshop on building thrivable networks @ Daniel's Tutor/Mentor Conference.
So, networks are built in many ways. First, by being in the same physical or virtual space, and second by active network weavers who make strategic introductions for the benefit of those they connect and for the benefit of the entire network. Networks are also activated in many ways. Sometimes by the initial introduction and connection to an immediate need, and other times, existing links need a little nudge to activate -- like an obvious opportunity. Our themes in the workshop will be:
• Know the Net - map the existing connections of your community/ecosystem
• Knit the Net - weave and support new connections, build a thriving network
• Nudge the Net - activate the network toward self-organization and action
Register here online and join us in Chicago on November 20th!
How did we get here?
Letting the days go by...
Many years of knowing, knitting and nudging.
Same as it ever was... Same as it ever was...
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| | 2009-10-05 | | There are many theories on why Chicago lost the right to host the 2016 Olympics. Some blame the International Olympic Committee and its anti-US bias, others blame the US Olympic Committee and its ineptitude, still others claim it is the "security theatre" at U.S. airports. Every one is looking for a single reason for failure, and most are looking for external entities and events to blame.
The list of names on the the Chicago 2016 Olympic Committee is very impressive -- intelligent people from important organizations. But as we have seen before, super stars do not necessarily make a super team. Chemistry is key to victory. Not only did Chicago have an all-star committee, they brought in other local Chicago stars, like Oprah, President and Michele Obama, et. al. to add their appeal to the effort. Yet, the Chicago 2016 Committee did not get the job done. Chicago was the first city eliminated in the rounds of voting. Was there no Chemistry in the Committee?
To gain insight into the group's chemistry I did a social network analysis looking for internal patterns of cooperation or competition. Is this group set up to win? The smart folks over at LittleSis.org have provided a relationship analysis around the Chicago 2016 Committee. They have gathered data on organizational memberships and interlocks amongst the committee as well as data on their donations. This is enough information for a two-mode [people to organizations] network analysis. I took the two-mode data and converted it to one-mode [people to people]. Links were formed based on the interlocks between each possible pair -- the more two people share organizational memberships and targets of donation the stronger their tie.
The strongest ties amongst Chicago 2016 Olympic Committee members is shown below -- these folks shared many organizational memberships and donated to many of the same individuals and groups. Notice two distinct clusters have formed.
Next we lower the bar for what a link is, and allow in more links. We see each cluster grow, in size and connectivity, but the two clusters do not connect.
Finally, we allow in even more ties and get a connection across cliques. Samuel Zell and Michael Sacks are the boundary spanners that connect the two cliques together. Doing a Google search we see that they are also connected via Helen Zell, Samuel's wife. Helen and Michael are both directors on the After School Matters board.
Our choices reveal who we are. The choices of the committee reveal that they may be two different groups with different interests, values, and approaches. Can they work together? Maybe this internal divide was another factor that contributed to the failed hosting bid?
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| | 2009-09-30 | | 
We continue our mapping of the social graph around the health care reform process with this map of the the six key senators [Gang of Six] in the debate and the cocoon of lobbyists they are embedded in. An interactive network map along with more information is available over at orgnet.com.
Thanks to opensecrets.org and the Center for Responsive Politics for the lobbying data!
Enjoy! | |
| | 2009-09-28 | | 
Health Care Reform continues to limp along in our nation's Capital. There are many voices and many opinions. Which ones will win out? The citizens may not be heard. The politicians working on the problem are embedded in a network of lobbyists who have as their clients various health care and insurance firms. [Click on the social network map for an expanded view].
Max Baucus is often viewed as the key node in the health care debate. Many firms are trying to access and influence Max. Max is the magenta-colored node in the middle of the network map. The lobbyists are the green nodes. Their clients [those who want to influence Max] are the blue nodes along the edges. The clients [blue nodes] who have hired multiple lobbyists get pulled in from the edge and toward the multiple lobbyists [green nodes].
Some sources are reporting that lobbyists are writing pieces of the proposed bill. Somehow I don't remember the chapter on lobbying in my American Government class -- must have been sick that week. [Can't afford to get sick now!]
We are looking at more lobbying data from LittleSis.org and OpenSecrets.org -- we thank them for their public data bases! I also want to thank Jean Russell for assisting with the research and for the design of the map above. Next up, an interactive map of all of the key players in Lobbying "Lollapalooza" 2009. | |
| | 2009-09-24 | | 
The FBI and the Department of Justice have now released three indictments in the ongoing investigation of corruption in the Cuyahoga County Government Offices in NE Ohio. I have written previously on this project called Operation Air Ball.
One of my researchers, Andrejs Van Nostran, and I took the three indictments and mined them for network data. We wanted to do a social network analysis of this complex and unfolding story.
People and organizations were the nodes. Projects, events, relationships and money flows were the links. The network map above shows just the key people in the three indictments. We hid the organization nodes for this view. Links show people that had business ties to each other. Most of the business ties shown had both legal and illegal transactions flowing across them, a few links carried only illegal transactions. Notice the two most central players have not yet been named by the Federal Prosecutor. They are referred to as PO 1 and PO 2 -- Public Official 1 and Public Official 2. More indictments are expected. As we get them we will add the data to our map, and reveal the identities behind the codes, as they are made explicit.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer has done a good job on reporting the corruption probe. Their analysis of the identity of PO 1 and PO 2 is available. The Cleveland public radio station -- WCPN 90.3 FM, ideastream -- had two recent programs on the corruption scandal with local experts and politicians. | |
| | 2009-09-21 | | 
Remember...
The technology that gives You the power to organize,
also gives Them the power to watch.
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| | 2009-09-13 | | 
A little experiment in crowdsourcing...
We are trying to put a new spin on our social network analysis products and services -- expanding our customer base which is now mostly other consultants. We got the above from our new ad agency. What do you think? Should we fire them or increase their fees?
Worst case, we will use this ad every April 1st.
Vote in the Comments section below. | |
| | 2009-08-24 | | First of a series of chats on leading edge ideas in regional economic development with Ed Morrison and Valdis Krebs.
We look at how to find hidden opportunities in business lists. Valdis uses social network analysis and some simple data mining to derive the network of collaboration opportunities below from the list of 350 NE Ohio advanced energy companies above. How did he do it? Watch and listen to this 5 minute screencast!
Next week's chat will focus on Ed's work around ditching organizational charts. | |
| | 2009-08-12 | | People make choices every day -- for themselves and for their organizations.
What to buy? Who to hire? What policy to implement? What stand to take?
The choices we make reveal who we are.
Data is everywhere these days -- often in simple lists. Lists often reveal who chose what or whom. All Internet shoppers know the famous Amazon list -- "people that bought this item also bought these items...". On the surface this appears to be a simple list, but underneath it reveals much about the Amazon customers making choices. Amazon book data can reveal much about the sociology around book purchases, especially political book purchases.
Transparency in government is all the rage these days -- especially in Gov 2.0 circles. Organizations are making all sorts of political and governmental data available to the public. One of the best at doing this is OpenSecrets.org. Recently they provided a list of all of the lobbyists in the health care industry who are busy trying to influence that debate. Although the list itself is useful, there are hidden patterns in the data. The list reveals emergent structures in the health care industry -- it reveals non-obvious connections between the major players.
A map of hidden ties in the pharmaceutical industry is displayed below. The data is from the list of pharmaceutical companies and their lobbyists from OpenSecrets.org. Just like common board members spread similar messages and ideas throughout the corporate and non-profit worlds, do common lobbyists have a similar affect? What does the choice of a lobbyist reveal about the intentions of a corporation?
What is different about this network map is that the links are what we normally consider as nodes -- the links are the lobbying firms that connect their clients into clusters of shared thinking and perspectives. Each group of colored links represent a specific lobbying firm that has been hired by the nodes/clients it connects.
Someone who knows an industry well would be able to spot funny associations in a map like the above:
why are these orgs clustered together? Org X and Y have come out publicly on opposing sides of the issue yet, they use the same advisors, are they really more alike than they pretend to be?
Org Z has always been "no comment" on the issue, yet they are strongly clustered with those who are highly in favor.
Org Q straddles the pro and anti clusters, what does this mean? Are they playing both sides? Are they not sure? Are they having internal pro/anti battles with different divisions choosing different advisors?
Displaying nodes as linking structures is another way to visualize what are called two-mode networks.
An interactive network map of the above is available now! | |
| | 2009-08-06 | | 
As we move into the second hour without Twitter, those of us who have grown to rely on it are wondering what is going on. Some colleagues report an ongoing DOS attack on Twitter this morning [DOS = denial of service]. Appears to be easy to take down single site based services... is Facebook next?
Twitter, Facebook, GMail and all other single site based services play with the Betweenness Paradox -- ultimate power/control when in operation, ultimate fail when not. Single point of failure. Brittleness, not resiliency.
How many points of failure do you see in the diagram above? A point of failure is when one node goes down and disconnects significant parts of the network from each other. More info on Betweenness Centrality in networks.
That giant sucking sound? That's the "trust for Twitter" quickly escaping into outer space. Twitter and cloud computing in general... first it was GMail, now Twitter, what will be "strike three"? | |
| | 2009-07-06 | | The mortgage meltdown was brought on by fraud and corruption at all levels.
At the grassroots in Cleveland, Ohio we see real estate "flippers" who buy bank-owned and other low price property, often at less than $10,000. Then without doing much to improve the properties, and via appraisal voodoo, they turn around and sell the houses for $50,000 - $100,000 to those desperate to get into home ownership. These unsophisticated buyers often end up in foreclosure and the hunt for a new set of suckers starts the process once more.
The blue nodes on the left are the owners of various Slavic Village properties in the early 2000s -- most are banks and other financial institutions. The flippers are the green nodes in the middle. The new home owners are the magenta colored nodes on the right. The flow of sales go left to right -- following the light gray links. A sells to B : A --> B.
From initial sale to foreclosure usually takes anywhere from 12 to 36 months. This process was repeated again and again with blinding speed during the period of 2003 to 2007. Most of the flippers and their collaborators have now been indicted by the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor and will face trial in October 2009.
All data was gathered from public records of real estate sales in the Slavic Village neighborhood in Cleveland and from indictments on the prosecutor's web site. | |
| | 2009-06-14 | | The recent mortgage meltdown had many players in many places. The investment banks on Wall Street needed large amounts of sub-prime loans to package into investment vehicles. To satisfy this need, they found plenty of help in most of America's major cities. Some local banks, brokers and appraisers were more than happy to generate an almost unlimited supply new mortgages. The generals on Wall Street had boots on the ground on Main Street.
One of the bloodiest battles was fought in Cleveland, in the Slavic Village neighborhood. Today the streets of Slavic Village show the scars of the battle -- destroyed homes, destroyed lives and vacant lots. From 2003 to 2007 houses were bought and sold at an alarming rate in this working class neighborhood. Houses were bought cheap and almost immediately sold at multiples of their true worth -- this is commonly called flipping. Most new owners ended up with with sub-prime mortgages that put them on the fast track to foreclosure. A local real estate gang had emerged, and was partnering with mortgage bankers in California. They had the home sales process covered -- seller, broker, appraiser, banker, buyer -- all lined up to feed Wall Street a never ending supply of sub-prime mortgages.
Anthony Brancatelli was the local Cleveland city councilman in Slavic Village. He could not believe what was going on in his neighborhood. He started tracking real estate activity in his neighborhood via a spreadsheet -- the same names and the same companies kept popping up. With the help of public records, soon Brancatelli and colleagues had the details on hundreds of real estate transactions which were compiled in a report by The Slavic Village Vacant and Abandoned Property Task Force.
Brancatelli's spreadsheet looks like this...
The network of sales transactions revealed in the spreadsheet are mapped below. A green line with an arrow shows "who sold to whom": seller --> buyer. The nodes/buyers hi-lited in pink ended up in foreclosure. As you can see, most buyers in these transactions ended up in foreclosure. Nodes in black are organizations, other nodes are individuals. We removed all names from all maps.
Digging deeper into the spreadsheet and into public records, it was revealed who had business ties with whom. The network map below shows a grey link between two nodes if they show a business tie -- working together, owning property together, appear on LLC documents together, etc. The nodes hi-lited in blue where indicted in the first wave in the autumn of 2008. The nodes hi-lited in green were just indicted in 2009. All of the blue and green hi-lited nodes in this network map were big sellers of real estate in the first map [they had many outgoing arrows].
It is easy to see who will be swept up in the next wave of indictments, or who will be on the witness list in the upcoming trials.
Sadly, every major city probably has maps likes this waiting to be revealed. The mortgage meltdown did not just happen on Wall Street. It was a alliance between Wall Street and real estate speculators on Main Street. Cleveland has started rounding up these crooks thanks to efforts of local neighborhood residents and elected officials like Anthony Brancatelli. | |
| | 2009-05-13 | | This morning I appeared on WCPN - 90.3 FM, the Cleveland NPR radio station, on "The Sound of Ideas" with Dan Moulthrop. The program was about searching for a job when you are over 50 years old. Listen to the MP3 here.
When is the best time to plant a tree?
20 years ago.
When is the next best time to plant a tree?
Today!
Chinese Proverb
What is true for trees, is true for networks -- build your network before you need it!
It is best to have been building and expanding your strategic personal network for all of your professional life. Unfortunately, most people don't come to that realization until they are let go from their current job.
Most people have small, dense networks composed mostly of their immediate on-the-job colleagues, friends and family. These networks are the first resource of the newly furloughed employee. Asking around, the job-seeker finds that immediate contacts often do not have much more job information than the job searcher has -- they are all in the same network neighborhood where everyone knows what everyone else knows at about the same time.
Once the job seeker exhausts the obvious job openings that s/he and their immediate contacts are aware of, they become stuck. What to do next? The common advice is send out or post resumes on-line, attend job fairs and start "networking". The first two suggestions get the job seeker onto the overcrowded freeway to the HR office. In today's recession, this route is a clogged artery with little or no movement -- time to get out of this traffic jam and try an alternate path.
The next suggestion -- "networking" -- sounds good, but is often approached wrong. Networking is commonly defined as quickly connecting with many people -- focus on quantity over quality -- sometimes mockingly called schmoozing. Building strategic connections is much different than just "networking" -- you build trusted relationships that bring you information and access that you currently don't have in your small circle of friends and colleagues. Quality trusted ties are like the trees planted many years ago. Quality trusted ties develop when people work on something together -- they don't develop over a handshake at a conference, a quick conversation over coffee or a speed interview at a job fair.
Networking may get you many new business cards, but are these people willing and able to introduce you to the hiring manager [the route around the clogged freeway]? If I just met you at a conference, or you called me out of the blue "to network", am I going to risk my professional reputation to introduce you to my boss or trusted colleague? Probably not. Yet, if you are introduced to me by a trusted friend, colleague or peer then I will listen and we will both benefit. Better yet, if we work on a volunteer project together, I see you "in action" and we bond -- I feel confident in recommending you.
Once you exhaust your inner circle of people who can make introductions, what do you do? Two things: 1) re-activate trusted ties from the past that are now dormant and 2) build new trusted ties via volunteering and part-time work.
Everyone has dormant connections that can be re-activated. Many people are now getting on Facebook and LinkedIn and re-connecting with former colleagues and college chums. Do so, but be careful. Do not re-connect with a transaction in your back pocket -- "Hi, nice to to hear from you again, do you know of any jobs?" I have a former colleague who re-connects with me every 5-7 years -- but he does so only when he is in the job market! He expects a connection, but is not eager to offer one of his own. Needless to say, he does not get far. Once you re-connect with one or two trusted ties ask them if they have remained in contact with others from your old social circle. You want to be expanding/re-activating your current network out 1 and 2 steps -- your contacts and hopefully their contacts. This will help you reach people with information about jobs you have not heard of yet.
A friend of mine, a job-seeking HR executive in Chicago, has done an amazing job of building her strategic network in the last year. She has dozens of new connections she built in prolonged interactions. She has volunteered on several projects in her field and also sits on several advisory boards. She has helped organize several local HR conferences and meetings and therefore has face-to-face work experience with a totally new cadre of colleagues. She now has a handful of strong trusted ties that she did not have last year. They have seen her in action, they like her work, they trust her, they give out their personal cell phone numbers to be references for her! Like a tree establishing a root system, it has taken her a while to grow this strategic network, but it is now vibrant and ready to provide her with many opportunities.
In addition to job offers and business opportunities, a wide strategic network also provides other benefits. Health and happiness! When I talked to my HR colleague in Chicago this week, she did not come across as a person that had been out of work for a while. She was very upbeat and full of energy -- which comes across in an interview! She was very positive because her network was growing and bringing results. She was meeting new people, sharpening her skills and learning new behaviors -- she was very positive about her future. More and more research is pointing to the health benefits of building social networks. Employers like to hire positive, high energy people.
Out of work? Form new ties -- not casual connections, but collaborative caring connections, built up over time. They will bring you a variety of rewards. Also, when you start your new job, do not stop your network building. Keep expanding your network, make new connections in new places. Keep growing that tree, you planted, with wide-reaching branches.
"Only connect!
Live in fragments no longer."
Howard's End
E. M. Forster
UPDATE: The friend mentioned above DID get the job with glowing references from the strong ties she had formed working on various local HR conferences and events in Chicago. She built a real network and it paid off! | |
| | 2009-04-27 | | The Swine Flu has been in the news during April 2009. Initially it spread amongst pigs, and then made the jump to humans that came in contact with the contagious pigs. From the early data, this appears to have happened in Mexico.
We use the social network analysis software, InFlow, to illustrate the spread of the contagion. Below is a social network map of the connections between employees in a large organization [data is real, names have been hidden]. A grey line indicates face-to-face [F2F] contact between two employees.
Now, one of the employees visits relatives in Mexico, who live on a farm and have pigs. The swine flu virus infects this employee, whose immune system has not been previously exposed to Swine Influenza A -- H1N1. The link of that infection is mapped below. The contagious pig is represented by the pink node. The disease transmission vector is represented by the green link.
If there is no human-to-human transmission of the swine flu virus then the disease stops here. One person sick, no contacts infected. Unfortunately, the CDC now acknowledges that transmission of this virus from person-to-person is possible -- one patient visited Mexico, came home sick, and passed the virus to another household contact who had not accompanied him on the trip.
Now the contact network at this workplace becomes a disease transmission network, as is common with airborne contagions. Also, this workplace network overlaps with other networks -- each employee goes home to a family/neighborhood/social network which also include F2F contact. As the virus spreads in the workplace, it will also be transmitted to other networks connected to the workplace network by common members.
The sick employee may still come to work initially and via coughing and sneezing start to spread the virus to others in the same space/location. The first wave of disease transmission is mapped below. We now show only the disease transmission links in green and hi-lite each node [yellow] that has been infected by the virus. For this simple example we are assuming a 100% infection rate [higher than usual] -- if someone coughs or sneezes in your presence, you will catch the flu after the normal incubation period, typically 1 to 3 days.
The map below shows how the virus spreads via person-to-person contact. Even if the original infected individuals are no longer at work, the density of the network, with multiple paths [and F2F contacts] between individuals, ensures that many employees will be exposed.
The virus spreads because infectious individuals constantly come in F2F contact with those who have not been exposed. Because of local density in a typical human network, a healthy person can be exposed to multiple sick individuals, thus increasing the odds of transmission. We can watch the contagion spread to the rest of the population, but in most cases some action would be taken once a significant portion of a local population becomes ill. Either government authorities or the employer will step in to isolate the sick from the healthy and adjust work locations.
Ironically, the network structure that enhances the transmission of good contagions -- such as ideas, solutions, and knowledge, can also transmit bad contagions such as disease and fear. When the network is transporting ideas and knowledge we want to decrease distance between individuals. When the network starts to transmit disease we want to increase distance and fragmentation in the network to isolate the virus and slow/stop the spread -- natural work groups need to be identified [via SNA/ONA] and physically separated [no F2F contact]. Another solution is for many people to remain at home [whenever possible] and connect over the Internet [i.e. Skype, GoToMeeting, WebEx, etc.] to coordinate and collaborate and get their work done.
For a deeper dive on social network analysis and contact tracing applied to public health issues see this CDC paper.
Be careful how you connect in the next few months! | |
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