Social Network Analysis

It’s been a looong time since I posted in this blog. I think I have been posting articles meant for this blog on my other blogs. BTW, here is my journal submission for Social Network Analysis course @ IIMB. This is meant for submitting it to a Professor in an academic institution. Hence I might have exaggerated here and there. I also might have slightly deviated from what I wanted to say and sometimes written what I really don’t believe in 🙂

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Social Network Analysis – Hmm… looks like a cool topic. But what is it all about? I guess it is all about bridges, centrality, brokers, ego… sort of things in a city map and players dealing with it. Well, that’s what the Professor talked about (in my dreams? 😉 ) and it turns out that reality is not so different form it.

OK, I see networks; professional networks; family networks, personal networks and all sorts of networks in play everywhere. If I observe it from a distance, it looks like watching a perfectly harmonic opera in the Palais Garnier. Everyone around me is an actor playing their part skillfully. It looks like a mesh with active nodes morphing its overall shape from one to another like that of a magician’s cloth. Unlike a regular opera, actors don’t act according to their script. But they create their own script. Their decisions on whom to connect with at any moment decide the shape of the mesh at that moment.

This is social network in action. Analyzing its behavior helps us to understand why do people network and how do they network. Robin Dunbar has proposed that the size of a species’ brain is in proportion to its ability to handle size of its group. As humans disproportionately large brains, we can imagine the complexity of network behavior we have. Robert Winston in his book Human Instinct concludes that “We are born to live our lives in collaboration with others, and we are born with the ability to realize when others are failing to play their allotted role”. So it will be quite interesting to analyze our networking behavior. That will help us to understand why few people are very successful and why several others couldn’t imitate their behavior. It will help us to understand how inherently shy people have their own strong networks. It will help us to understand our social norms and better regulate work place ethics. It can even help us to understand about the nexus between power, politics, money and crime.

Wonderful, let me start with what academia has. Wow, it has tones and tones of information about social networking analysis. It is amazing to see that several paper have already been published in such a nascent filed like social network analysis. So many concepts! I couldn’t help nodding my head when I hear/read about several of them. But this scenario looks similar to Indian Private Equity space. Too many people are chasing too few companies instead of going a bit down and doing angel funding. I personally find it very hard to distinguish between the existing knowledge and what these papers trying to say. Most of them are just plain common sense. Hence I think there is lot more to uncover, theorize and discover in this field. It might be a quite promising field to work on!

Some academic researches focus on parameters and methodology of analysis. More or less they distinguish between different networks and types of networks. In a network, they identify the key players and the links between them. Then associate parameters to the players as well as the links between them. Based on these things define a concept, say Eigen vector centrality and see how does it influences the network and what role does it play in the network. You have to prove it; what other way than using numbers? Numbers means credibility. So create mathematical formulas to define and calculate the concept. Define metrics for the impact these concepts have on the networks and find the correlation.

Methodically analyzing one’s one network on those parameters will help us to tell where we stand. Our needs and wants tell us how our network should theoretically look like. Then we can reshape the existing network slowly to fit our needs. But practically this won’t work.

I see networking as an art rather than science. Line between art and science is rather a hazy one. Things that are now in one bucket may fall under the other bucket later. But under the current scenario I would like to consider ‘social network analysis’ as studying the ‘art of networking’. One can classify art; explain the characteristics of art; appreciate one’s art; study the art; but won’t be able to define boundaries to art and create a recipe for making art. The same holds true for social networks. Hence study of social networks will help us to inform us about various possibilities and options. It will guide us and validate our options. But it will never tell us what we should do and how should we our build networks. If someone promises to do it, please ignore him/her.

One big issue with analyzing a network is – how to get information about the network – how do get to know the ties between varies parties involved. If we couldn’t get this information, there is no point in spending years towards developing models and frameworks to analyze the network. This such a huge problem that it almost makes ‘social network analysis’ as a pure theoretical and academic domain.

One’s own network is very important to a person. It establishes his identity and defines his extended capabilities. A person is in a network because he brings some value to the network. He brings value not just by his own knowledge and intelligence but also because he can connect with persons from other networks and can bridge value exchange. If he exposes his true connections and strength of those connections, then makes himself vulnerable. Whoever has this information can make him redundant for the key persons whom he relies on. If that happens he will be kicked out of his networks. Hence everyone will keep information about their connections close to their heart and guard it closely. They will give you bits and pieces of information only on need basis.

It explains why different studies propose conflicting hypothesis. If one deals with partial information then the result will not be consistent. Actually many people will maintain a dual identity. No I am not talking about fellows working for Foreign missions of government and persons involved in intelligence gathering. It is a common practice to not make all your connections public but to intentionally expose a restricted subset or fictional list so that no one suspects your real connections.

There are a whole bunch of people working on a field called ‘competitive intelligence’. These people don’t (officially don’t) use illegal methods to gather information. But make painful efforts and go to great lengths to gather information. Almost all the big corporations employ them to gain knowledge about competitors, customers and vendors. Because of complex multilevel crossholdings, surrogate shareholdings and undisclosed relationships of directors, it will be quite difficult to identify who controls a company. Hence in case of Mergers and Acquisitions many companies use these researchers to analyze the counterparty. What these people do is exactly what is ‘social network analysis’. But they don’t most of the academic knowledge. The methodology they employ is different between individuals but they keep it as secret as the knowledge that they gather.

If you have read the book ‘Simply Fly’ by Caption Gopinath, then you might have seen the nexus of power, politics, money and their network. If you are an entrepreneur or associated with an entrepreneur, then you might know the importance of network. Network is everything for a startup. Survival of new venture and it subsequent growth is shaped by the entrepreneur’s network and his ability to create his/her own network around/in his organization. We see networks in action everywhere. It is like the invisible ‘ether’ but making visible impact to our day-to-day life.

If I am a born socializer then I know how to manage my network. But if I am not and like most of us, if I am a shy person then either I think persons using their networks are incapable persons or networks don’t play any significant role or I silently observe networks in from outside but unable to take any action. Will social network analysis be able to help such person develop the required skills to develop and maintain a network. That’s a million dollar question!