Blogs and Social Networks: Model Cases

Friday I attended an AMA conference on consumer-generated media. One of the presentations was on social network analysis, delivered by Randal Moss of the American Cancer Society’s Futuring and Innovation Center.  (Understanding networks and how to influence them is pretty critical to their development strategy.) 

Randal described research by UVA’s Rob Cross, a specialist in the field and the author of “The Hidden Power of Social Networks”, that among other things identifies classes of people he calls “central connectors” and “boundary spanners”.  Central connectors are the fonts and hubs of knowledge within network clusters.  Boundary spanners are folks who serve as critical links between otherwise separate clusters in the larger network.  

Understanding how word spreads through (whom) in a social network seems like a pretty interesting thing to be able to do.  Randal showed an interesting social network map generated by Valdis Krebs’ Orgnet firm and his InFlow software that suggests why Apple’s iPod has been so successful, where others have not.  Equally interesting and perhaps more relevant to marketers is Buzznet.  Our friend Peter Gloor who runs the ICKN Project has a pretty interesting technology called TeCFlow for doing this.  See here for the TeCFlow movie of how an idea propagates through a network of weblogs.

Today, Rob Scoble’s blog led me to Anina’s.  She is certainly one of the more unique boundary spanners I have come across.