TekFlo - Visualizing Time in Social Networks

Peter Gloor, MIT Center for Coordination Science, and Yan Zhao, Dartmouth Center for Digital Strategies, present an interesting paper on Visualizing Time in Social Networks that introduces their application, TekFlo. The name, TekFlo, stands for a Temporal Communication Flow Visualizer for Social Network Analysis. It automatically generates movies of electronic communication flows. Peter and Yan have applied it to email, blog links, and links between sites that show up in Google searches on a specific search topic. In addition to the movies, they have developed several other interaction measures such as a contribution index which measures the activity of individuals as senders and receivers of email or links and an index that measures the degree to which communication patterns are democratic and balanced or hierarchical in nature.

The paper provides some examples of cases where it was applied to email traffic. By combining these results with a contextual understanding of what was going on, the authors can look at patterns that illustrate functional and dysfunctional communication patterns. This view provides the ability to look for the effectiveness of ongoing communication patterns. Are the key players being left out? Is the wrong person serving as the communication hub? Are there side pockets of communication that are isolated from the other stakeholders? This knowledge can lead to interventions to correct dysfunctional behavior.

The ability to look email traffic and blog links on a temporal basis can provide an understanding of the interaction of these two communication media. Adding the links between sites that show up in Google searches adds a further dimension for this cross-channel analysis.

Possible questions to examine include: How does the implementation of blogs within the enterprise effect email traffic?

Are blogs uncovering new sources of expertise outside current email communication?

How does the implementation of customer focused blogs affect emails from customers?

How do blog posts affect traffic to your site and your relationships to other sites?

Are your blog posts and your web site complementing each other?

The tool is available for free down load at the MIT CCS ICKN site.