Technicolor Blogmap  An update to the Blogmap Project. Using the same Friendship links data from the Blog Tribe on Ryze, Valdis developed two new maps.  The first map shows the Tribe's network within Ryze with Tribe Members colored in magenta and non-members in blue. This differentiation makes clearer the size and linkages of the actual tribe.
 The second map only includes tribe members as nodes, and again using Friendship data, it uses InFlow's graphing capabilities to isolate a primary hub, myself. While I find the image disturbing, Valdis assures me this is natural for a community in its infancy. As the organizer of the network, most of the initial links will be with me, but this is quickly fading -- as cross-connections proliferate. Valdis points out this is already happening.
In fact, Valdis Kreb's paper with June Holley, Building Sustainable Communities through Network Building whitepaper defines 4 phases in community network development:
- Scattered Clusters
- Single Hub-and-Spoke
- Multi-Hub Small-World Network
- Core/Periphery
Valdis comments that the Blog Tribe is moving rapidly through phase I. As what he would call a network weaver, the image of myself being the primary hub is the clearest sign that I need to encourage others to weave as well. My role as a network weaver is to take two iterative and continuous steps: know the network (take regular snapshots and evaluate your progress) and knit the network (follow the 4 phase network knitting process).
Maps are great at revealing where you are. Combined with the whitepaper's framework, it reveals that while the network has gained some strength through the centralized communication facilitated, it lacks redundancy and wider contribution. Recall that the community is only 2 months old and it is one without a specific organizing principle except the common interest of blogging, and one could say the progress has been fantastic, when measured by membership growth and linkage structures. But that image still disturbs me.
7:55:48 AM 
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