Pressure moving through a multiplex network

I get more and more convinced that we need to know the whole story to understand what happens in a network, the links are just the bones and without a discussion of their meaning, we often go so wrong in interpreting them. For example, think about about how influence  – or pressure – can move [...]

How can you grow without becoming McDonalds?

Viv McWater’s blog is one of the places I go to for inspiration. And she got me again. This time with her thoughts about scaling talent, which means (as I understand) making the impact of talent felt on a level that is higher or bigger than the talented individual. She quotes Joel Spolsky comparing Big [...]

Cheat Sheet: Entering Net-Map data

Yesterday I prepared this one page guide to entering Net-Map data (236 KB) in an Excel file, so that it’s easy to import into VisuaLyzer or other social network analysis programs. I wrote this up for our IFPRI colleagues in Malawi, who are drawing Net-Maps with policy makers and others about fertilizer subsidies to understand [...]

Difficult Decisions

I’m normally someone to make decisions in a heartbeat, stick with them and generally speaking, fare rather well with that approach. I have a number of friends though, who labor – endlessly it seems – over decisions and just can’t make up their minds. And, lately, I have found myself doing quite a bit of [...]

Shake ‘em…

Imagine putting 60 people in a box and shaking it like crazy. Then you walk away and have no idea what will happen next. That’s the feeling I had after an exciting Net-Mapping session with a group of development and knowledge management professionals at our SID workshop last Tuesday. I had warned the participants beforehand [...]

Quote of the day

“Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.” Abraham Lincoln

Reminder: Learn Net-Map tomorrow in DC

It will be wild and fast and frustrating. We have far too little time but still want to do everything. So, what it will be in the end is a (substantial) starter to make wet your appetite for the main course. As it says in the invitation: “Influence Mapping of Social Networks – A presentation [...]

It’s like magic! But what does it mean?

I’ve been mapping networks for some years now but in the past months I have used a more traditional approach to social network analysis for the first time. In a project with the United Nations University, we (Nancy White and I) are tasked to find out how their networks are structured and to initiate a [...]

Upcoming talk in DC (10th of November)

The Society for International Development in Washington DC will host another knowledge management event next week and they are giving me the chance to talk about Net-Map there. If you are interested, it’s a public brown bag seminar and it’s on the 10th of November, from 12:30 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.. You can register here.