Actually, Duncan Watts is an academic theoretician. Malcolm Gladwell is a journalist who publicizes academic research. While in some fields it’s increasingly a distinction without a difference, here it matters. Watts is collecting and systematizing hard data; Gladwell makes the work of theoreticians such as Watts more accessible to the general public. Compare, say, Watts’ dissertation or the landmark Strogatz-Watts Nature article and you’ll see the difference immediately, even if the math seems unfamiliar.
I’m not saying that one approach is better than the other—far from it—just that they are qualitatively distinct. Rather than seeing the difference between the two as evidence of noteworthy disagreement among network theorists, a network theorist would see it more as a reflection of the scholarship moving beyond the point Gladwell was describing back in the late 1990s. Of course, some academic network theorists would also be a little miffed at the thought of Gladwell getting rich on their ideas, but them’s the breaks.
As for your more general point re networks, amen—the mapping should be done, and it’s great to see the nonprofit community coming around to this. I’ll never forget giving a talk on nonprofit network mapping back in the day and being told that such a project would be frivolous because networks were a fad!
Still, one substantial obstacle I’ve found in talking to nonprofiteers about datamining is privacy. To make maps meaningful—as opposed to pretty pictures of colored lines—we’d want to have access to the comprehensive data accessible to, say, Google, Facebook or Verizon, so as to give us the ability to plot email, text, telephone and even real-world contacts in real time. This is possible technically, but when people think a bit about what this could expose they get nervous. And with good reason, since you can learn a lot about a person or group with even just a little bit of data. If we want to have the benefits of effective mapping, we’re going to have to accept some real and difficult trade-offs.
As someone who is creating a nonprofit network, I believe the idea of mapping nonprofit networks very important. I believe that we are at a point in society, where the satisfaction people receive from antiquated uses of technology (I’m really thinking ahead here) like passively sitting in front of a TV screen is quickly becoming dissatisfying for people.
As a result of this, I hope that more people will adopt technology to become part of networks, including nonprofit networks, to get more out of life than what technology is currently providing. Its asking for a lot, but mapping the evolution of nonprofit networks would help shed light not only on those entities and systems, but on how other systems and entities in our world are changing.
COMMENTS
BY Jeff Trexler
ON February 12, 2008 08:12 PM
Actually, Duncan Watts is an academic theoretician. Malcolm Gladwell is a journalist who publicizes academic research. While in some fields it’s increasingly a distinction without a difference, here it matters. Watts is collecting and systematizing hard data; Gladwell makes the work of theoreticians such as Watts more accessible to the general public. Compare, say, Watts’ dissertation or the landmark Strogatz-Watts Nature article and you’ll see the difference immediately, even if the math seems unfamiliar.
I’m not saying that one approach is better than the other—far from it—just that they are qualitatively distinct. Rather than seeing the difference between the two as evidence of noteworthy disagreement among network theorists, a network theorist would see it more as a reflection of the scholarship moving beyond the point Gladwell was describing back in the late 1990s. Of course, some academic network theorists would also be a little miffed at the thought of Gladwell getting rich on their ideas, but them’s the breaks.
As for your more general point re networks, amen—the mapping should be done, and it’s great to see the nonprofit community coming around to this. I’ll never forget giving a talk on nonprofit network mapping back in the day and being told that such a project would be frivolous because networks were a fad!
Still, one substantial obstacle I’ve found in talking to nonprofiteers about datamining is privacy. To make maps meaningful—as opposed to pretty pictures of colored lines—we’d want to have access to the comprehensive data accessible to, say, Google, Facebook or Verizon, so as to give us the ability to plot email, text, telephone and even real-world contacts in real time. This is possible technically, but when people think a bit about what this could expose they get nervous. And with good reason, since you can learn a lot about a person or group with even just a little bit of data. If we want to have the benefits of effective mapping, we’re going to have to accept some real and difficult trade-offs.
BY Ian Felton
ON February 2, 2009 08:15 AM
As someone who is creating a nonprofit network, I believe the idea of mapping nonprofit networks very important. I believe that we are at a point in society, where the satisfaction people receive from antiquated uses of technology (I’m really thinking ahead here) like passively sitting in front of a TV screen is quickly becoming dissatisfying for people.
As a result of this, I hope that more people will adopt technology to become part of networks, including nonprofit networks, to get more out of life than what technology is currently providing. Its asking for a lot, but mapping the evolution of nonprofit networks would help shed light not only on those entities and systems, but on how other systems and entities in our world are changing.