CNET's The Big Picture

George Siemens at elearnspace noticed elearnspace: The Big Picture

I just noticed this at CNET news - they are connecting their stories using a network-like map to show how they relate to each other. Great idea.

If you click on any main story, you will see the story on the left and, just below the advertising, The Big Picture associated with the story in question that shows other stories, companies and topics that interrelate. You can go to a full screen version to navigate through their stories, topics and people. And at least in Firefox there was no plugin to add. Once you get used to the navigation (just click on a box to center and see what's related to that box), it's an interesting way to review the news CNET covers.

Networks maps for storytelling

Bruce Hoppe gives a nice example of Networks maps and storytelling Network maps of government scandal

Check out this graphic from Sunday's NY Times, about seamy goings-on in Washington (snipped). Wow! There is a lot of information on the page (maybe too much).


The widely recognized master of these kinds of network-storytelling pictures was Mark Lombardi (1951-2000), who elevated these diagrams to an art form.

Updated for correct title and URL from Bruce.

Swinburne University class using talk from MeshForum

Jamais Cascio's talk at MeshForum 2005 was one of our keynotes. He published the text of the talk to the worldchanging.com blog. His text has now be adapted and used by a class at SwinMC - Swinburne University of Technology - Media & Communications.

This is exactly the type of use of content from MeshForum we are very pleased to see.

VisualComplexity - visualization resource

From the MindJet Blog, a pointer to Visual Complexity

VisualComplexity - A unified resource space for anyone interested in the visualization of complex networks…across a series of disciplines, as diverse as Biology, Social Networks or the World Wide Web.

Tim found it on Emily Changs’s e-hub.

Time, Identity and Social Networks

I have posted an article to piecing IT together - Time, Identity and Social Networks. In it I begin an exploration of the relationship between common perceptions of time and social networks.

In upcomming weeks I will be exploring these ideas further at my personal blog and also hope to announce the launch of a number of related website projects to test these ideas.

Feedback, comments, criticism and suggestions are very welcome!

Noshir Contractor on IT Conversations

In case you missed it, IT Conversations has posted the fourth talk from MeshForum 2005, Noshir Contractor - Co-Evolution of Knowledge Networks. Their description:

Recent technological advances in hardware and software, broadband connectivity, and the decreasing cost of computers, cell phones, and other such devices have created an environment where we can connect with anyone, anytime, anywhere almost effortlessly. However, how do we determine with whom we want to connect? The answers to this question can be found by studying the underlying socio-technological motivations for the creation, maintenance, destruction, and reconstitution of knowledge and social networks. Dr. Noshir Contractor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, discusses his research in communication theory of dynamically linked knowledge networks over the past ten years at Mesh Forum 2005 during his presentation titled "Coevolution of Knowledge Networks and 21st Century Forms of Organizing."

Dr. Contractor presents a multi-theoretical multilevel model of using technologies to understand knowledge and social network organization through the discussion of real-world examples. From the 'Lovegety' to Amazon purchase suggestions and beyond, Dr. Contractor outlines the concepts that form the basis of social and knowledge networks. Those concepts are: the social network, "it's not what you know, but who you know"; the cognitive-social network, "it's not who you know, it's who they you think you know"; the knowledge network, "it's not who you know, it's what they think you know"; the cognitive-knowledge network, "it's not who you know, it's what who you know knows."

Connectedness newsletter

Bruce Hoppe of the Connectedness blog has a business, focused on using the x-ray of social networks to improve business. We've also referenced his items here a number of times.

He is also now collecting highlights of his blog entries into a regular newsletter for people who are not regular blog readers, or who want executive summaries.

Welcome to the inaugural edition of Connectedness, a newsletter about improving business with a network perspective. This month's featured topic is accelerating innovation. Future issues will consider other critical business applications of the network perspective such as increasing productivity, improving leadership, creating value with key customers, and connecting HR to corporate strategy. If you already read my blog Connectedness, think of this newsletter as an executive summary.

Contact Bruce directly, if you are interested: bruce AT connectiveassociates DOT com.