Valdis Krebs writes about a college soccer team that used social network analysis to help turn the team around in his post on Weaving Team Nets. The team won the national college championship the next year. Which may be coincidental but it makes a good story. Valdis makes a very good point in the opening to his post:
“Teams are not made of talent alone. It is how the talents of individual players intersect and interact that distinguishes a good team from a collection of good players. From the New England Patriots, to the Detroit Pistons, to the Chicago White Sox -- teams without a superstar at every position win championships.”
This is something I have written on before.
Detroit Shows Teamwork Trumps Individual Talent – when they beat the Lakers
Teamwork Trumps Star Power Again – when the Patriots won their third Super Bowl
I coached a soccer team for seven years. It was my daughter’s team. I noticed there that teamwork was the key. I learned a lot from the experience. We were able to hold our own with the boys team in special challenge matches much to their dismay because the girls were much better at teamwork.
Helping to analyze and support better teamwork in sports is a great application of SNA. I think I will send the suggestion to the New England Patriots. But then Bill Belichuk has likely already read the article and may be calling Validis now even through Valdis lives in Cleveland.
The story is also written up in the Business Week special issue on Competition -- Game Plan: First Find The Leaders.
Our UFO has landed quietly last night in a densely populated coordinate at a region humans refer to as "Germany." This particular congregation was generating so much noise we were compelled to study the anomaly.
As we approached the boiling source of haphazard frequencies, our superb training took over. We were well-trained to investigate any unusual source and level of human commotion and report immediately back to our ZX-879 headquarters. Turning on our invisibility shield helped us get really close to the subject of examination without being detected.
As we reached the egg shaped concrete container filled with 100,000 or so human subjects, the noise level rose to such unimaginable heights that we had to shut down our frequency analyzers for fear of damaging their sensitive circuitry.
When we cleared the top of the concrete structure we were blinded with thousands of light-emitting radiation sources.
Then we saw them -- 22 voluntary humans darting back and forth in alternating sequences of random and seemingly-goal-oriented sprints. We have checked our central computer to decipher the modal characteristic of such kinetic outbursts and we were advised to locate the focal source of coordinated agitation.
Posted by: soccer | March 04, 2007 at 02:58 PM