Social maps shows communication gaps

Engineering firm charts ties: Social-mapping method helps MWH uncover gaps
By Phred Dvorak

To boost productivity at engineering firm MWH, executive Victor Gulas asks employees which colleagues they talk to, and whom they turn to for help. Then he draws a "map" of the connections, which reveals dark patches around employees who work closely with others and lighter areas where there's little interaction.
Mr. Gulas says the map shows communication gaps, information bottlenecks and underutilized employees. "It's making the invisible visible," he says...
Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123273549517510905.html

.

Networks, social and biological links

The Seed Salon: Conversations on science and culture
with Albert-László Barabási and James Fowler

Barabási mathematically describes networks in the World Wide Web, the internet, the human body, and society at large. Fowler seeks to identify the social and biological links that define us as humans.

In this video Salon (8:26 / 35.5 MB), Barabási and Fowler discuss contagion and the Obama campaign, debate the natural selection of robustness, and ask: Is society turning inward?

Great discussion between two of the academic heavyweights in SNA, says Valdis Krebs, member of ONA-prac group, an online forum for a growing international Community of Practice on Organizational Network Analysis (ONA).