In my mind Decision Due Diligence has more of a personal feel than you get from an overall network analysis. The process specifically accounts for the emotions and behaviors of the players, or nodes in SNA jargon, along with the actual mechanics involved in passing information between nodes. So the importance of links, from a Decision Due Diligence perspective, is to a large degree self-contained. On the other hand the importance of links in SNA is a function of where the link exists with respect to other links.

Upon reflection, I think the two approaches are perfectly complementary. If you can understand the dynamics of a specific link as well as how that link fits into the larger system, you have a powerful tool for understanding information flow within an organization.

As I was working on this post, the term Social Connection Analysis (SCA) jumped into my head, and I think that is the right label for the concept I am addressing  above, and the thing I was trying to address with @valdiskrebs in the twitter exchange you see to the right. Where the core of SNA is understanding the aggregate of all the connections in a network, the core of SCA is understanding the specifics of any one connection within the network.

Sometimes I get ideas in my head and I can’t tell if it is something really cool or just the looney thoughts of a somewhat delirious Dad. So you have been warned. Read on at your own risk…

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It has occurred to me that when we typically try to depict, or model, networks and relationships, we put the majority of the data in the nodes. And very little of the data in the connection.

The first problem with this model is the assumption that each node is uniform and the same from any perspective. In reality every node is unique depending on your perspective. Does anyone believe that they are seen the same by their spouse as they are by their Boss or by their drinking buddies? Of course not. So how do you represent this differently.

I suggest that there is a core amount of data that does belong in the node, but the bulk of the data belongs in the connection itself. This becomes shared data between the two nodes and unique to the relationship. Graphically it may look something like this:

Obviously this concept still has a lot of development, but if you made it this far, congratulations, you must be one of the few that finds stuff like this fascinating. Drop me a note. I would love to talk about this.