Tools for SNA Practitioners: Developing the Skills

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Tools for SNA are best learnt through formal training or some form of apprenticeship or mentoring. The tools are not designed for novices; they assume some sort of prior training in the sociological and mathematical aspects of networks. Generally, the tools are taught in the context of a university course: either a graduate program (there are over a dozen universities, worldwide, that offer graduate courses in social networks), or (increasingly) in organizational development courses or in business schools. For the KM practitioner, the best approaches are to:

• Look for a conference that offers an SNA tutorial or workshop
• Find a practitioner who is willing to serve as a mentor and teacher.

A number of the current practitioners (myself included) learned from working as part of an industry consortium, the Institute for Knowledge Management (IKM) at IBM. KM practitioners were able to participate in the research by Rob Cross and Andrew Parker at the Institute, and to learn how to use the tools and methods during the course of projects conducted at their companies. This is how I started in SNA, during my tenure as the Director of Knowledge Management for Nortel Networks' Global Professional Services. After working with Rob and Andrew on a project, I began doing projects myself, during which time they were available to mentor me through the learning process.

Many of the current practitioners of SNA learned from this work at IKM and continue to use it in their organizations today. These companies include Aventis, the Bank of Montreal, and Novartis. However, it's important to note that pioneers in using social network analysis in organizations, Valdis Krebs and Karen Stephenson, have been working for quite some time on what they have called Organizational Network Analysis (ONA).

If you are interested in adding social network analysis to your toolkit, you should plan on spending between $3,000 and $5,000 to acquire and learn how to use the tools. Valdis Krebs, who provides the software InFlow, includes training and mentoring in the price of the software. Conferences or workshops based on freeware or shareware tools (Pajek or UCINET) would cost an equivalent amount.
It's very important, if you are bringing SNA into an organization, that you have top-level management sponsorship. The process of a project, and the results, are an organizational intervention in an of themselves, so it is particularly important that, if you do not have organizational development experience, that you partner with an organizational development specialist.

SNA Software and Software that Provides SNA

There are very few software packages designed specifically for social network analysis for knowledge management practitioners. Most of the software that is available has been developed by and for academic researchers, and requires fundamental understanding of graph theory in mathematics, algorithms, and so on. The table below summarizes most of the commonly-used software.

Software	Comments
UCINET	Combines spreadsheet editor (for data), statistical analyses using a variety of selectable algorithms, and integration of the NetDraw program for diagramming. Available as Shareware from the website of Analytitech. (http://www.analytictech.com/).
InFlow	Packaged solution for social network analysis diagramming and interactive "what-if" analysis. Provides a pre-defined set of statistics. Purchase includes training and follow-on consulting for practitioners. (Described in more detail on http://www.orgnet.com/.)
IKNOW	(Inquiring Knowledge Networks on the Web) Web-based software designed for organizations to collect data, map, visualize, and measure the patterns of knowledge and information flow. IKNOW is software copyrighted by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, available for use by practitioners as part of its research program. (See http://www.spcomm.uiuc.edu/Projects/TECLAB/IKNOW/index.html)
Cyram NetMiner	Commercial software application that integrates SNA methodology with network visualization. (Available via http://www.netminer.com)
RepTools	A representational tool for the collection, analysis and presentation of data. It was designed to make it easy for social scientists to graphically represent their field data. May provide useful maps and views of relationships to accompany social network analysis diagrams. (See http://www.practicalgatherings.com)
antology	A general-purpose toolset for defining and exploring networks of information. Designed for applications from data architecture to business analysis, it includes the capabilities for social network analysis. (http://www.cakehouse.co.uk)
NetVis Krackplot Mage Pajek (others)	Drawing packages used by social network experts. These tools, and other unique software developed by researchers, are catalogued on the INSNA (International Network for Social Network Analysis) web site. Some are free, open source software, and others may require small license fees. (http://www.netvis.org/resources.php).

In addition to these packages, vendors who provide software for intranet search and discovery also provide social network analysis capabilities. This software will analyze the interactions that people have with documents and construct a proposed "social network" based on the document interactions. The intent in these cases is to provide suggestions about potential linkages among people who are working on, accessing or reading, or referencing the same documents. In some cases the software will "recommend" people to one another. Lotus Discovery Server and Verity are among the vendors who provide this capability. One company, Entopia, recently added a module to its content search and discovery software that generates network maps showing people who are working on documents in a particular topic. The map provides a starting point for a qualitative network analysis.

The Analysis Only Helps You Know What Questions to Ask

Remember that when you perform an SNA, it is extremely important to be sensitive to the environment you are surveying, and to always use the data and maps generated by SNA software as the starting point for interviews and organizational analysis. Like many diagnostic tools, SNA requires careful stakeholder management and presentation of results. You should review results with the SNA sponsor and key managers before sharing the results broadly, and let the people in the survey participate in the analysis.

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