#NTPoC Unit 3: SNA Artifact Challenge

In Unit 3 of our Power of Connections learning experience, Stacy asked us to map our social networks using the tools she had suggested. Here are some of my "findings."

My Twitter map doesn't show anything surprising. Most of my connections are in the US, with the exception of a small group scattered throughout Europe and the Middle East.

Here is the second map of my Twitter connections and it tells the same story, only in percentages.

My LinkedIn social network is actually much more interesting.

For starters, it is much more diverse than my Twitter network. My connections on LinkedIn have been formed while I was at different companies focused on different parts of the education industry. I have contacts in publishing, educational technology, publishing technologies, content management, Higher Education and learning design. Not surprisingly, while my network is sizable, it is not incredibly interconnected. In other words, few of these people would not be connected in any way without me.

Interestingly, that lack of "connectedness" does not diminish the value of this network, at least in the way that I use it. For me, LinkedIn is about staying connected to multiple industries, and about having access to experts in those industries. It's like a professional reference (a professional Wikipedia). In that context, it continues to serve me extremely well.