Social Network Analysis - measuring the immeasurable.

Euan Semple comments on the topic of social network analysis  (or measuring the immeasurable!).

Euan identifies two points that make him nevous about SNA:

"The first is because the activity is invariably couched in terms of one group - managers, the business - mapping the relationships of everyone else - the people prepared to open up and use the social tools in the first place.

The second is because they seek to make explicit something that is much better left implicit. We can all work out what the network is and where the good guys are from the using the tools and inhabiting the environments they create without having to have it drawn out for us.

If I felt that someone else was mapping my conversions and the relationships they represented - and wasn't prepared to have the same done to them, I would soon stop talking."

As I have commented on the blog, I detect a form of management paranoia; they don't really understand what social networking is all about, they don't want to dip their toes into what they consider to be muddy water, yet at the same they want to understand it in the only way that makes sense to them - numbers and statistics.

What worries me are the conclusions they may draw from this imprecise and flawed method of evaluation!