March 18th, 2014 – Business SNA Talk at Consortium for Service Innovation Annual Member Summit at Rancho Bernardo Inn in San Diego

06MarMay 7, 2015 By Marc Smith

Consortium for Service Innovation Annual Member Summit

Date/Time	Location
Mon, Mar 17 – Wed, Mar 19, 2014 9:00 am – 5:00 pm	San Diego, CA Rancho Bernardo Inn 17550 Bernardo Oaks Drive San Diego, CA

I will attend and speak at the Consortium for Service Innovation Annual Member Summit at Rancho Bernardo Inn in San Diego on March 18th and 19th. There will be several workshops on emerging methodologies, tools, and techniques to understand and continuously improve the customer experience and reinforce brand messages. Talks and speakers include:

Customer Insight Metrics
Fred Van Bennekom, Great Brook Consulting
Map and Improve Your Customer Experience
David Kay, DB Kay & Associates
Nurturing an Online Community
Erica Kuhl, Salesforce.com
Building Customer Empathy
Jim Pendergast, Sage
Strategic Elements of a Customer Success Initiative
Greg Oxton, Consortium for Service Innovation
Understanding Social Ties with Social Network Analysis
Marc Smith, Connected Action

I will be running hands-on workshops on Tuesday working with NodeXL to map company and market topics. Wednesday is a basic overview of networks, social networks, social media networks. I will talk about the value of networks for businesses. The network perspective makes it easy to recognize that the same number of people can organize themselves into a variety of connected structures and that some structures are better than others for various purposes.

An example is the map of the connections among the people who tweeted about Consortium member Sage North America.

Details…

March 17, 2014 Predictive Analytics World – San Francisco: Think Link! Network Insights with No Programming Skills

05MarMay 7, 2015 By Marc Smith

I will present a workshop at Predictive Analytics World in San Francisco on March 17, 2014.

Track 1: Social Media Analysis
Think Link! Network Insights with No Programming Skills

Networks are everywhere but collecting, analyzing, visualizing, and gaining insights into connected structures can require advanced technical skills. This session presents a free, easy-to-use tool for network analysis that builds on the familiar Excel spreadsheet called NodeXL. If you can make a pie chart, you can get insights into networks. The tool makes it easy to collect data from a range of social media (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.). Quickly create visualizations and reports on the shape of connected groups. Identify the key people, groups and topics in a community. Network analysis can reveal the hidden structures in streams of interactions.

March 16, 2014: PAWCON Workshop: The Big Picture on Big Data: Proven Methods You Need to Extract Big Value

05MarMay 7, 2015 By Marc Smith

I will present a workshop at Predictive Analytics World in San Francisco on March 16, 2014.

Workshop: The Big Picture on Big Data: Proven Methods You Need to Extract Big Value

Date and Time: Sunday, March 16, 2014, Full day: 9:00Am – 4:30pm

Intended Audience: Managers, decision makers, practitioners, and professionals interested in a broad overview and introduction

Knowledge Level: All levels

Attendees will receive an electronic copy of the course notes and materials.

Workshop Description

“Big Data” is everywhere. The topic is impacting every industry and institution. Big excitement about big data comes from the intersection of dramatic increases in computing power and data storage with growing streams of data coming from almost every person and process on Earth. The pressing question is, how do we best make value of all this data – what should we do with it?

Working with big data effectively depends on understanding the sources of data and the issues in storing and analyzing it:

Where does big data come from?
How do you manage, store, and compute on big data?
What qualifies as “big”?

This one day workshop reviews major big data success stories that have transformed businesses and created new markets.

Dr. Smith will cover these revealing stories in order to illustrate the key concepts, tools, and value-proven applications driving the big data revolution.

“Big data” is a open buzzword – it could be defined as any amount of data you can’t afford to handle – but the big, newfound value achieved by computing at scale is no fad.

What you will learn:

Where does big data come from: Common sources of big data.
What makes data big: Velocity, Variety, and Volume!
How can we leverage it: Open tools and platforms for storing and analyzing big data.
The new paradigm: Today’s shift from hypothesis testing to a broad exploration for correlations is a revolutionary change in the way data is explored.
Best practices for analyzing big data: Key methods in data science, predictive analytics, and text analytics to analytically learn from data.
Social Data: Finding key connections in webs of people and events.
Applications of big data insights to business.
Future directions in big data: bigger, bolder, and better.

Schedule:

Workshop starts at 9:00am
First AM Break from 10:00 – 10:15am
Second AM Break from 11:15 – 11:30am
Lunch from 12:30 – 1:15pm
First PM Break: 2:00 – 2:15pm
Second PM Break: 3:15 – 3:30pm
Workshops ends at 4:30pm

Podcast: Social Media Clarity S01E12: Listener question – best sources for social media insights?

05MarMay 7, 2015 By Marc Smith

In the latest Social Media Clarity podcast hosts Randy Farmer (@frandallfarmer), Scott Moore (@scottmoore) and I (@marc_smith) respond to our first listener question from Ryan Crowe (@doctorcrowe) of Twilio who asks:

“Where do you guys read about social media? Do you have different resources for different aspects, for example community management, building a proper network, contact research, etc.?”

The resources I use to keep up to date on social media management issues that I mention in the podcast include:

Sunbelt Conference – International Network for Social Network Analysts annual meeting
Strata Conference – O’Reilly conference on Big Data
ICWSM, the International Conference on Web Blogs and Social Media
Duncan Watts – Sociologist and social media network researcher at Microsoft Research

Hear the rest from Scott and Randy on the podcast or read the transcript.

Download this MP3

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RADIO WVXU Cincinnati – Ann Thompson How millions of tweets boil down to six types of conversations

05MarMay 7, 2015 By Marc Smith

RADIO WVXU Cincinnati – Ann Thompson interviews Marc Smith about the recent publication of a report on social media networks in Twitter co-authored with the Pew Internet Research Center.

“How millions of tweets boil down to six types of conversations“

http://bit.ly/1eXt6IV #NodeXL #SMRF #Pew #Network

Social media network maps and reports covered in the press

05MarMay 7, 2015 By Marc Smith

Coverage of our report on the six basic types of social media network structures created with the Pew Internet Research Center has been extensive. Here is a round up of the articles we have found about the study.

Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet Research Center was interviewed by Bob Garfield on OnTheMedia.

Washington Post: The six types of conversations on Twitter

San Francisco Chronicle: The six ways we interact on Twitter

RADIO WVXU Cincinnati – Ann Thompson

Fox News New York

Al Jazeera: Study maps Twitter’s information ecosystem

PBS NewsHour: Study uncovers six basic types of Twitter conversations

Des Moines Register: Twitter talk fits into 6 patterns, study finds

USAToday: Twitter talk fits into 6 patterns, study finds

NBC: Liberals, Conservatives Tweet in Partisan Bubbles, Study Says

CNET: Red state, blue state? On Twitter, never the twain shall meet

TIME: Who Are TV’s Biggest Fans? New Research Names Twitter Users With the Most Influence

Quartz: Turns out Twitter is even more politically polarized than you thought

Forbes: These Charts Show Why Political Debate On Twitter Is Pointless

Vator: Pew report: how we communicate on Twitter

Global News Canada: Study reveals six different types of conversations on Twitter

Live Science: The 6 types of Twitter conversations revealed

Seattle PI: The six ways we interact on Twitter

Associated Press: Pew maps Twitter chatter in new type of study, finds 6 types of conversations

Chicago Tribune: The 5 cliques of Twitter

Mashable: Your Twitter Conversations Fall Into One of These Six Categories

PC Magazine: Which Type of Twitter Conversationalist Are You? In a recent report, Pew Researchers explain the six regularly observed types of conversation on Twitter

NPR: Study: Conservatives And Liberals Rarely Debate On Twitter

Daily Mail: What type of tweeter are you? Researchers reveal there are just SIX types of tweet

The Diamond Back: Professor helps map social media connections

Your Social Media Conversation Is Like A Topographic Map

Media Post

Politico: How Twitter Works

University of Maryland: New Map of Twitterverse finds 6 types of networks

University of Georgia

GovTech

Wired.IT

Pew Internet and Social Media Research Foundation Report: Six kinds of social media networks in Twitter

20FebMay 7, 2015 By Marc Smith

Working together, the Pew Internet and American Life Project and the Social Media Research Foundation has published a report on the variations in social media crowd structures documented by network analysis and visualization of Twitter. The report is titled:

Mapping Twitter Topic Networks:
From Polarized Crowds to Community Clusters

The paper documents the distinct patterns of connection that emerge when people talk to one another using social media services like Twitter. The paper includes six network visualizations that clearly demonstrate the diverse ways people connect to people when using online tools.

The report was produced by Marc Smith from the Social Media Research Foundation, Lee Rainie from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, Itai Himelboim professor of communications at the University of Georgia, and Ben Shneiderman professor of computer science from the University of Maryland.

Podcast: Social Media Clarity S01E11: Interview danah boyd about “It’s Complicated”

04FebMay 7, 2015 By Marc Smith

Teens and Social Media

This week features hosts Randy Farmer (@frandallfarmer) and Scott Moore (@scottmoore) interviewing danah boyd (@zephoria) about her book It’s Complicated: the social lives of networked teens, coming out February 24th and available for preorder now.

Topics in the podcast interview include:

The flawed California Eraser Button Bill
Teens creating social norms: SnapChat
Parents don’t get it: Tech replaces teens’ dwindling access to public spaces

Download this MP3

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2014 INSNA Sunbelt SNA Conference: February 18-23 – St. Petersburg, Florida

03FebMay 7, 2015 By Marc Smith

The INSNA Sunbelt social network conference will be held February 18-23 at the TradeWinds Island Resort on the island of St. Pete Beach.

There will be NodeXL related talks at the conference.

NodeXL: Network Analysis Made Simple
Tuesday February 18, 8:00am – 11:00am & 11:30am – 2:30pm

Marc Smith, Social Media Research Foundation
CITRUS Ballroom

Twitter Conversations as Network Structures: Typology and Measurements
Saturday February 22,

Itai Himelboim, Marc Smith, Ben Shneiderman, Lee Rainie

The conference schedule is available.

I hope to see you at the conference!

StrataConf 2014 – February 11-13, Santa Clara – Network Science Made Simple: SNA for pie chart makers

03FebMay 7, 2015 By Marc Smith

I will present at the 2014 Strata Conference in Santa Clara, CA on February 11, 2013.

Network Science Made Simple: SNA for pie chart makers

Marc Smith (Connected Action Consulting Group)

2:20pm Wednesday, 02/12/2014

Data Science
Ballroom ABNetworks are everywhere, particularly in social media. Understanding networks can quickly reveal the key people, groups, and topics that matter most. But the tools to collect, analyze, visualize, and gain insights into connected structures have remained complex. Now the free and open NodeXL application makes network analysis tasks as easy as making a pie chart. The Network Overview Discovery and Exploration add-in for Excel (2007, 2010, 2013) extends the familiar spreadsheet, enabling users to easily access networks from a range of data sources including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, email, message boards, Wikis, blogs, and other repositories of connections. With simple automation tools, NodeXL users can calculate a range of network metrics, create a visualization, and generate a report highlighting key people, groups, and top URLs, hashtags, words and word pairs used in the discussion network. Network maps have revealed many of the hidden structures of social media, defining the major differences in the shapes and structures created as people link to one another.

I will also hold Office Hours at the event:

Office Hour with Marc Smith (Team NodeXL)

Marc Smith (Connected Action Consulting Group)
3:00pm Wednesday, 02/12/2014
Office Hour
Table A

If you have questions on social network analysis, meet with Marc to talk about:

NodeXL and related network analysis and visualization tools
How to collect, store, analyze, visualize, summarize and publish social network reports with just a few clicks (and no coding)
How to identify key influential people and subgroups within a conversation network
How to apply social network analysis to social media marketing
How to apply organizational network analysis to enterprise collaboration

Above is a map of the connections among the people who recently tweeted the term “strataconf” over the 7-day, 19-hour, 38-minute period from Sunday, 26 January 2014 at 21:53 UTC to Monday, 03 February 2014 at 17:32 UTC. The key people in the network at this point are: