Social Network Analysis

Organization charts suggest that work and information flow in a hierarchy, but network mapping reveals they actually flow through a vast web of informal channels. Social network analysis involves the mapping and measuring of these normally invisible relationships between people, providing an organizational X-ray. What ties information, knowledge, management and social network analysis more closely together is the relationship between people and content. Nodes of a network show the relationships or flow between the workers of an organization. They work by using the concept of degrees (as in separation.) "Many nodes and links can fail but it still allows all the rest of the nodes and links to reach others through "other network paths," states Courtney. There are the many facets that make up the organizational network analysis, such as betweenness, closeness, and boundary spanners. They examine the position of an individual on the network map. Danielle thinks that "in the context of organizations a social network analysis can be vital to increasing the success of the communications relationship and productivity of an organization."

Like nodes the network centralization provides insight into the sturcture of the organization. The "senders" and "receivers" make up a traditional structure, were the lines of contact work up and down, it is difficult for messages to reach higher authority from the bottom. Whereas in a modern organization, communication is rapidly moving and changing. Technology has made it possible for the lines of talk to be more accesible by all; lack of communication is now easier to avoid.

The concepts of network analysis and socially orientated systems are far beyond the ordinary text-based chat. In fact, these concepts are critical to the creation of truly useful online communities. These innovations are lying all around us, from Google's Links to AOL's Buddy Lists to Amazon's circles of purchase.
We humans are very social animals. It's about time more of us started recognizing this in the systems we design.