One aspect I struggle with, and it’s something I feel rears its head every time I have a conversation on the web or social networks in general, is that these illustrations can never show a holistic view of the communications environment. I’m specifically referring to news stories here and the relationship between the media and other influencers and these conversations.

Working in communications we’re challenged to deliver measurement of the relative influence of sources, whether that is online, in print, or broadcast. More specifically where our communications influence these sources and the spread of that influence from one source to another. At present it seems to me we are far from reconciling the different media types and presenting their relative influences in a format that shows a real understanding of the situation. I have yet to hear a convincing argument that the answer lies solely online although some do argue it can. Personally I think that in order to genuinely show understanding we need to find a way to bring these different media types together and show the natural cross-fertilisation of the message across both new and old media types – how we do this I’m afraid I have no idea!

Well, that depends on your goals. I don’t think there is a generic measure of influence, you have to define it at the beginning of your project. I agree on this with measurement expert Katie Paine. Check this post on her blog to see a whole list of possible angles for measurement: http://kdpaine.blogs.com/kdpaines_pr_m/2008/06/kdpaine-partner.html

Let’s also take a look at an example. If visibility on the Internet is your goal, people who have an impact on your story becoming visible will be influential to you. As a result, the heat map of Digg won’t look to you like feedback from outer space “indicating possible life”. It will rather be a visual representation of real relationships between people who can make the career of your story. If one of the hot spots on this map closely relates to your story, you better know. You will want to understand this network, listen, get to know people and check what you could contribute, as you might do with an important journalist.

However, other than circulation numbers of traditional media, the visuals I’ve shown represent real action between people. I believe this is the future of measurement in communications. “Awareness” as measured by circulation, column inches or air time are actually softer measurements than the visuals I’ve shown. The “indication of possible life”, as you phrased it, is more appropriate to describe the traditional awareness measures. Who knows who really cares what’s in traditional media?

However, I agree with you that it is often a challenge to make the social data we get from the web “practically useful”, but hey, you need a challenge, don’t you? It is always an exercise in analytics and judgment, and yes, in many cases it’s an experiment. After all, this space is still emerging, albeit at a rapid pace.
Best,
Georg

I am also still grappling with the underlying assumptions in much of this discussion, such as what constitutes influence in the first place. Is the person who is most vocal the most influential on a subject? Or is it the person to whom most people go for reference? For communications professionals, running influence algorithms in the sociosphere tells us where the conversations are, but by the time we get there we just see the tail of the conversations disappearing around the corner. Traditionally, we are used to (or perhaps delude ourselves into thinking…) starting conversations, as opposed to joining them. We go to places we think will be read, and will therefore influence, our target audience. New thinking suggests we go where the conversation already is, but that assumes we can link noise to influence. I am still not convinced.

There is actually one large organization on my list already using their own social mapping tool: IBM! They have been eating their own dog food for several years now and claim that they have 400,000 personal profiles in their system. Check out the full story here: http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/19985/

In general, I believe there are three success factors for this kind of new publics, be it inside or outside organisations:
1) business incentive: users have to immediately sense the value of the tool for their work. If they feel, they are wasting their time, they won’t do it.
2) intuitive technology: The technology used has to deliver the features expected and should be easy to use. However, users will bring some patience, if factors 1 and 3 are given.
3) social dynamic: The company’s culture needs to be supportive of this way of collaboration that goes across departments, hierachies and geographies. At least there has to be room for informal networks of early adopters piloting things like this. In the long run, the whole organization has to follow, though.
I said more on the drivers of new publics here: http://ccc.georgkolb.com/?p=11

There is also a comprehensive new book exploring potential, reality and success factors of “Enterprise 2.0″ as they call it. I’m happy to say it’s a German book (and I also contributed a paper to it ): Frank Martin Hein (Ed.): Elektronische Unternehmenskommunikation [Electronic Corporate Communications] – Konzepte und Best Practices zu Kultur und Führung. Deutscher Fachverlag, Frankfurt a. M., October 2007.
Best,
Georg