Leveraging Social Networks in the Workplace

Posted on October 14, 2010 by Bill Petti

The newest issue of the Gallup Management Journal includes an article that explores some implications of social network theory to the workplace.  One implication the article discusses is the optimal makeup of teams, particularly those tasked with creativity and innovation.  Rather than a collection of well-acquainted colleagues with similar expertise, optimal creativity emerges from a [...]

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Predicting flu outbreaks, fashion trends, and political unrest with social networks

Posted on September 20, 2010 by Bill Petti

Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler have released a new paper that looks at the potential predictive power of social networks.  They claim that current methods of contagion detection are, at best, contemporaneous with the actual epidemic.  What is needed is a true early detection method, one that would actually provide an accurate prediction of a [...]

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Overestimating Political Agreement in Your Social Network

Posted on July 17, 2010 by Bill Petti

People tend to associate with others with whom they share various attributes (typically, socioeconomic and demographic).  It would seem to follow that they also interact with people that share the same opinion on political and philosophical issues.  Apparently, people only think their friends share their views. A recent paper by scholars working in Yahoo! Research [...]

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Joy is Harder to Spread than Misery

Posted on July 15, 2010 by Bill Petti

According to a newly released study, emotions such as happiness and sadness spread from person to person in much the same way that diseases spread from an epidemiological perspective.  While the idea that social networks can influence behavior, health, and emotions, has been kicked around for some time the current study is the first to explicitly map [...]

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Choose your friends wisely: the behavioral influence of social networks

Posted on May 12, 2010 by Bill Petti

The concepts of “peer pressure” and “running with the wrong crowd” are far from new.  For quite some time, people have explicitly or implicitly explained their or other people’s behavior by referencing the influence that one’s social circle can bring to bear. Nicholas Christakis is a leading researcher focusing on the ways in which the [...]

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Oldschool Social Networking

Posted on November 26, 2009 by Bill Petti

Today’s Wall Street Journal includes an interesting article about the Wednesday 10 group–a network of (at the time) up and coming businessmen in New York that was formed in 1957.  The group was the brainchild of former columnist William Safire, and the article coincides with the group’s first meeting since his passing.  The rationale for [...]

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Extended rant: Mark Helprin is not a crowdsourcing/social tech fan

Posted on November 12, 2009 by Bill Petti

McKinsey’s Mary Kunz interviewed Mark Helprin and discussed various issues connected to his view that the “‘all free, all the time ethos’ of the Internet threatens to erode the creation of new knowledge and new art”.  Helprin is a staunch skeptic of the creative and innovative potential of the Internet.  In fact, he stakes out [...]

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All the net’s a stage

Posted on October 28, 2009 by Bill Petti

Andy Oram over at O’Reilly Radar writes a really interesting piece on the work of Erving Goffman and how it relates to identity and the web: [Goffman's] fundamental contribution is how he slants his premise that we present a front in all our behavior before others. You have to understand that this posturing is real [...]

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The Firm, Transaction Costs, and Organizing for Innovation

Posted on October 27, 2009 by Bill Petti

Ana Anjdelic responded to my latest post with some very interesting points.  She commented that some of my suggestions would significantly increase transaction costs, specifically information search costs incurred by firm.  Ana notes that increasing transaction costs in this way contradicts (or runs logically counter to) Coase’s view of the firm.  She writes: It’s true [...]

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Organizing for Innovation: A conversation with Ana Andjelic

Posted on October 25, 2009 by Bill Petti

Ana Andjelic and I have just started a discussion around how to best organize for innovation.  (BTW, if you aren’t already a reader you should really check out Ana’s blog, i [love] marketing.)  Rather than continue the conversation in the comments thread I thought it might be good to bring it over to the blog. [...]

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