Full Circle Associates

I have been thinking about the application of social network analysis to social causes since Patty Anklam's talk on Friday. Here is a related blog post from Network-Centric Advocacy.

Maps to Connect the Network: Thinking on the Scale of A Movement or Party This is What We Need

Do you ever feel like the old boy network understands how to wire folks together. Look at the type of projects IBM is taking on....

IW: What does it mean to “do social network analysis” inside an organization?
VK: There was one consultant … [we worked with] who specialized in helping newly placed executives get up to speed. She would work with execs who had just been hired for a high position, C-level or VP, in an organization where they had no experience and no network. To hit the ground running, they needed to understand the organization. We would use InFlow to map it out. These people know this; these people know that; there’s a cluster. And we’d put together a strategic plan.

GK: My last project was with IBM’s On Demand strategy group, a leadership team of 23 men and women who report to the CEO. I had them stand in a circle, I took some black yarn, and I connected the strong links. There were only six. Then I gave everybody three pieces of yarn and said, “Who do you need to connect with next week?” Picture these people exchanging ends of yarn with one another to form a web. Then I got one of the leaders to stand on a chair and look down at that web. “That’s what your team needs to look like,” I said.

The movement is broke. Your job is to"wire" your campaign team.

In politics, we need to "wire" the campaign team (in the broadest sense.) In community organizing and development, do we wire the community? In a few weeks I'll be spending the afternoon with some students at the University of Washington School of Dentistry. They will be looking at how to embed a new dental hygiene training program in a diverse, low income neighborhood. I've been thinking about what advice I would have given 10 years ago, and what conversations we might have today. (I think giving less advice and more conversations is one piece of -- um-- advice.) I have been doodling with the idea of going to the neighborhood and taking some digital photos and putting them up on A.9.

Thoughts?

Technorati Tags: networks, cooperation, SNA, social_networks