Exercise 10.1 Social networks case study

Since we have a fine collection of artefacts from our own learning community in this subject, use the references to guide your directions AND figure 1 on mapping the social network as a set of nodes.

As the diagram and grid shows:

James is followed by Sarah and Andy

Sarah is followed by James and Andy

Andrew is followed by James, Sarah and Tyrone

Tyrone is followed by James and Sarah.

If you look at the blogs of the various blue pod members, all of us has a different view of what is a follower and a followee. My definition just looks at each blog and notes the followers as claimed on the site. However, if you also make a person a follower if they posted a comment (but did not register as a follower) then the diagram looks very different. I tended to comment a lot on the main Blue POD site and also on the blogs of the other members but I didn't register as a follower. Therefore the diagram makes my communications minimal and my contribution seem small (and I don't think it was).

The tricky part is deciding whether those followers who are not in Blue POD should be included. This depends on the context of the 'following'. Blue POD activity was based on the CIO recommendation scenario. It had a clear purpose in bringing us together. My (and others) following of non Blues blogs was to ensure that I was up to date with the course work and to see what other students' responses were to the same questions.

If I try to reconcile the nodes proposed by my diagram, I think it is a very simplistic view of the nature of the interactions. I suppose the exercise would be useful in tracing 'pass the parcel' communication scenarios or decoding 'swarm behaviour' but it did not provide much help in documenting how Blue delivered their award winning recommendations (lol).

I think the diagram could be improved by putting arrow heads on the lines to indicate 'flow' and maybe colour coding to designate roles or sub groups and PODs outside the group that contributed. Sarah included follower outside of the Blue POD and I think her effort was better for it.