Been interesting times for network analysis. A spate of articles recently (and I’ve gotten some potential business interest from my own writing and web sites). What’s in the air?

Email patterns maps corporate structure, and Email reveals real leaders describe a research project at HP labs. The researchers graphed the email flow over a two-month period to see what the patterns were. They concluded that this mapping was an accurate indicator of the communities within the lab and also the leaders.

There was a subsequent conversation about using email on the SOCNET list. The consensus in that community is that email tracking is useful for certain types of community (for instance, where all communication really is in email). But qualitative surveys are still better for determining the actual nature, quality, and strength of the ties or connections among people.