Community Mobilization

Quitting Smoking happens in Social Networks

A study from Harvard Medical School and the University of California, San Diego appearing in the May 22 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine finds smoking cessation occurs in network clusters. The idea of getting help to achieve a goal is nothing new but here is empirical data that supports the support group. The primary finding of this study is that smoking cessation tends to be contagious, i.e. people tend to make the decision to quit smoking based on the influence of their social networks.

The study is important because it points to the fact that legislating out smoking via taxation and smoking bans push smokers to the fringe of their social networks, and it is clearly important to have a 'quitting network'.

NNDB Mapping Tool

NNDB has created a mapping tool that allows you to create a visual map of the connections amongst the people in the database. The visualizations are enlightening and provide a unique perspective to viewers.
Visualizations are fantastic ways to examine complex data sets. Rob Cross from UVA has been using data visualization tools such as UCI net to track information and energy networks.

NNDB is an intelligence aggregator that tracks the activities of people we have determined to be noteworthy, both living and dead. Superficially, it seems much like a "Who's Who" where a noted person's curriculum vitae is available (the usual information such as date of birth, a biography, and other essential facts.

Will Web 2.0 Transform Market Research

Our friends at Forester Research have a new article out discussing the value of using online social media and social networks in market research. The immediate reaction is that social networks are a complete collection of lowest common denominator banter and hollow ramblings and musings. My response to that is  ... well yea.

Think about the value of a focus group, and how it comes from collecting an assortment of average people to talk about or review a concept or a product. In non profits we may use them for website usability testing, or new patient service programs. If we are looking at the average John and Jane then why would we not got into social networking spaces for feedback?

The article hints at the cost structure involved in using the spaces to collect data and how it could reduce the response costs and increase response rates. Already there are survey applications appearing on Facebooks and Myspace. The next great leap forward is going to be targeted surveys based on profile information and purchase information. That is the 4th monetization strategy of Social Networks.

Influence of Internal and External Networks on the Outcomes of Strategic Change in Organizations

Alexander Alexiev is presenting on the internal and external networks have direct impact on strategic decision making from top level leadership. The complexity of decision making is complex so the research looked at the difference in exploitation and exploration. He is looking at the network differentiation in ration vs. consensus decision making. Only Ration is featured in the report. Two major factors were the homogeneity and consistency of senior management and the change pace of the market the industry was in.

In exploration having a Heterogeneous  board for  exploration overrules outside social network influences. The same thing is true in the dynamic fast paced environment - a heterogeneous core is very critical. One of the key future factors will be the tracking of centrality of executive officers and the bounds of external networks and their reach. Access of those networks is also a key consideration. The dependent variable was sales and product development and the question was if the new innovations were tied to new technologies or revivals of existing items.

INSNA Conference morning sessions

Neighborhood norms of Reciprocity, Netwrok Social Capital and Depressive symptoms.

 

Valerie Haines presented this unique study that examined health care, and how neighborhoods helped themselves stay connected to mental health care in particular surrounding depressive symptoms. The study looked at 32 neighborhoods in a mid sized southern city. They study employed phone and personal interviews. The study was looking at Network social capital – the ability and capacity to get members of the network the capital and access they need. The questions looked at perception of how willing neighbors were to be of help. The research questioned a set of resources including education, health care, and employment resources. The studies overall state that perceived support is more important than received support.

 

The study found that the access to social capital impacts depressive systems. Moreover the study team did conduct a study in

New Orleans

pre-Katrina and they plan to return to follow up, now that a good amount of the network social capital has been eroded by the storm and ensuing population change.

 

 

Mass Media Programming and Contraceptive use in

Nepal

Marc Boulay

 

The study evaluated the personal network for injunctive (active) and Descriptive norms (passive) around birth control. So the study looked at if these norms influenced birth control adoption and how. This is a significant research as it addresses basic personal network power to persuade an individual health choice. As a matter of research it shows that if a majority (51%) of your network uses contraceptive then you are 90% more likely to do so. Moreover there was an additive effect (sum is greater than the parts) when there was injunctive and descriptive norms in individual’s personal network. As a matter of research those who listened to the radio serials that discussed birth control, and then participated in a discussion group, were much more likely to have a favorable opinion of contraceptive.

 

Social network activities in Health Promoting Schools in Thiland

 

The WHO identifies

Health

Promoting

School

as an effective methodology to develop effective education system within countries.

Thailand

began the HPS in 1988. The study looks at networks of Gold standard quality (as measured by 10 metrics set by the Thai education department) and Bronze schools. The researcher looked at the difference between the network structure of the school population using survey questions and UCINet for analysis.  One of the questions that was posed in the discussion was if a segregated group that appeared on the network map were the smokers.

 

How Does network Structure impact performance – On Water Collection and Utilization

Water collectives serve about 850 K households with some cooperative being as small as 40 houses and some being as large as 50,000 houses. The cooperative managers were a key subject in the study. The study looked at how do different networks address the low income household need for water. Part of the intrigue is that water cooperatives serve a wide range of socio economic homes from lean-toos to million dollar mansions. Social networks of the water managers as well as the social pressures are key to keeping the water on to all homes. Formal affiliation with a national water management organization or another national league did not have a significant impact on the performance of the water cooperative.

Moving up in The Game: Status and Attention in Hip Hop Music

The Social Network of Hip Hop Dis songs Within hip hop there are directional relationships amongst dis songs and the flow of energy to and from rappers. There is a centrality  component in dis networks. The questions become what happens to the actors involved in the network and why are they dissing each others. In the late 1990s dis songs lost popularity in lieu of murders. The qualitative data included in a dis includes content as well as album sales. Furthermore there is a public perception attribute to dis. Affiliation with a high status person (positive or negative) has a positive impact on popularity or status. Methodology looked at may 1 2001 – January 1 2007. The sample included 203 rappers looking at sales and award data as well. What impact to the relationships have on performance in terms of sales. In degrees are disses in and out degree are disses out. Disses in have a positive sales impact. Status was determined by Gold record sales. Being dissed by a higher status improves your own status. However dissing upwards is more beneficial than dissing down. Reciprocity view over a one year period says that diss reciprocity is positive. Giving a response to a diss has an inconclusive impact on sales. Most importantly the Diss is mediated by the industry status structure.

Boundry Spanners, Close Collaborators and Old Friends: An Eploratory Analysis of Distributed Workers Individual Social Networks

John Bakke With distributed work force there is a fear that the workplace will become less cohesive and fragment. There is a distinct difference between habitual ad hoc work groups and consistent cooperative work groups. The study sample came from the combination of two Nordic shipping companies where there were employees in Norway and Denmark. The questionnaires were e-mail based as well as some personal interviews.

Most frequently workers named other close  workers as collaborators. They did not list family or friends denoting a distinct division between work and social / familial relationships. The network diagrams showed three kinds of workers - Boundary Spanners and Close Collaborators, and the Old Friends Network. Boundary Spanners had wide and shallow network ties. Close Collaborators had networks consisting of co-located coworkers, and Old Friends were people who were once co-located and have moved on but still rely on the network of old friends to get jobs and activities done.

Leadership and Role Differentiation in Civil Society Organization

Christopher Weare of USC is talking about how are roles structured in civil society organizations? How are the roles determined and are there individuals who are central drivers to this? Do roles emerge or are they predetermined? How do the roles relate to higher level roles?

Weare uses the concept of brokerage, mediate action between two actors. There are different kinds of brokerage. 5 forms.
Coordinator: internal to your own sub group
liaison: Connecting people within 2 sub groups
Information broker: Transferring data between 2 sub groups
Representative:internal you to 1 external
Gate keeper: internal you to 1 external

Analysis looked at City of LA councils and examined their needs and strife to move city government policy with local knowledge and action.  Interesting Social capital and preexisting social capital so play a significant role in individuals attaining leadership positions. Individual characteristics play little role in your rise and that internal activity are the driving force for leadership growth. 

Structure Vs. Performancs

The premise of this program is that it is possible to look at structure and understand the potential for performances. When the aggregate constrains of a group is low the person individual has many advantages in terms of connectedness and the reputation that goes along with it especially in smaller groups. In the French Cancer research arena there are only 165 researchers. The metric of analysis (Impact Factor) was the number of published articles, reviewed manuscripts and presentations. Interviews asked whom you asked for advice and who asked you for advice.

The most telling metric was when the researcher combined the in and out ties based on recruitment and research conversations. When the aggregate Scarce resources was higher than 40% (you were doing a good amount of recruiting and research connections) you were in a good position to succeed in producing papers and presentation. Moreover depending on the size of your research clique and your access to scarce resources there is a graph that plotted your success growth.

The Structure of Buzz- Modeling Rumor Diffusion in Dynamic Social Networks

Jurgen ZPfeffer, Michael Zerr, Martin Eichner, Markus Scwehm are asking the question where do you begin a rumor? When you are sending high social currency rumor information (sex and scandal) it is indifferent where you seed a rumor for diffusion. However initiating a low social currency rumor (Marketing) it is critical where you initiate a rumor. It is easier to be inoculated with information if it comes from different directions and different areas of your personal network. The eventual information transfer will hop to new areas of the network like flying sparks. Ideally seed local and create a seed fire from which you can generate secondary fires, but a strong seed is important to keep the information fire burning and keep interest peaked.

 Next steps is to investigate why rumors die within a network. Is the validity or the social capital of the rumor central to its longevity? An example of this is a novel called “Das Kind”. They created a viral campaign around the book. The question is to create a buzz market. So they sent a 11 pizzas to people at home who did not order a pizza. Inside the pizza was a USB stick with a movie and created an internet game leading up to the release of the book. The consultancy searched on blogs and personal profiles to find people interested in mystery and action novels. The interest was more important than the size of thier network. The consultancy was to the seed a strong fire in one city (

Berlin

) and let the flying sparks move to other areas of the country.