Dunbar's number

Here's the article about the guy who tried to prove he could have more friends than Dunbar's number.

And here's a video by Dunbar talking about the idea.

Clay Shirky: Institutions vs Collaboration

Watch this video by Clay Shirky about how 'wise crowds' can capture value better than traditional organizations.

Here's a short video explaining the wisdom of crowds as well.


Also, here's author James Surowiecki talking about the ideas in his book.
http://blip.tv/orton-family-foundation/james-surowiecki-on-the-wisdom-of-crowds-584104

The Hidden Influence of Social Networks

• What is the widower effect?
• What did they discover when studying the obesity epidemic?
• What are the three main factors that lead to clusters of similarities? 
• What is an ‘emotional contagion’?
• What is transitivity?
• What determines 47% of the number of friends you have?
• What plays an important role in determining whether your friends know each other?
• How are carbon atom structures similar to human networks?
• What is a super-organism? What are some examples?
• What does Christakis think determines our experience of the world?
• What does he think that the world today needs more social networks?

http://www.ted.com/talks/nicholas_christakis_the_hidden_influence_of_social_networks.html

Network Graph

Day 1 - Vocab

Social network: a patterned set of relationships between two or more actors

actor, node, vertex: an entity in a relationship

social capital:  the resources—such as ideas, information, money, trust—available in and through personal and business networks

network tie: the connection or relationship between actors

density:  reflects how many people in a network are connected (usually directly) to each other

network size: the number of nodes

direct tie: 2 nodes connected by  1 line

indirect tie: two nodes connected by 2 or more lines

dyad: 2 actors connected by a tie

triad: 3 actors connected by 2 or 3 ties

activity:how participative a node is

influence: the potential to affect nodes

social network analysis:  the mapping and measuring of relationships and flows between people, groups, organizations, computers, Web sites, and other information/knowledge processing entities.