I have been checking out Agna a neat little free social network analysis (SNA) tool which runs on both PCs and Macs (on top of Java). Agna allows social network data (directly input or imported from external systems) to be displayed, manipulated and analysed graphically in a number of ways/styles and is very easy to install and use. Agna is a great way to get into SNA.

Here are some example Agna screenshots

Agna allows 3 key types of social network analysis (explained in detail in an excellent 8-page introductory PDF paper by Marius Benta downloadable from the Agna website):

Centrality
Centrality as an actor-level coefficient reflects the degree of access to information (or resources) of an actor and hence the probability of that actor to acquire a leadership position in the group. As a network-level coefficient, centrality measures the distribution of information (or power) within the group.

Sociometric Coefficients
In a communication network, actor-level sociometric coefficients measure the level of communicational activity of a specific actor.

Distance-Related Coefficients
This category of measures is based on the concept of geodesic distance. Given two nodes of a network, say node A and node B, the geodesic distance from A to B is the length of the shortest possible path from A to B.

My only complaint is that it would be great if Agna an API (Application Programming Interface) or set of web-services which applications could use to embed Agna within their own software.

Thanks to my readers for pointing out two other very interesting tools with free versions:

Socilyzer - www.socilyzer.com. Socilyzer is built for managers and consultants to conduct their own basic analyses. The aim of the tool is to make it as easy as possible by integrating questionnaire design, data collection and data visualization. There are also good resources on the website explaining how to interpret the SNA diagrams. Well worth trying out.

SocNetV - "Social Networks Visualiser". It has a very nice gui, runs on Linux, Windows and Mac, supports GraphML and .net files, and is swift to compute centralities and distances. It does some network layout, as well. Check it out.

For a great introduction to social networks and social network analysis see these two articles by Richard Cross:

Social Network Analysis: an introduction

Social Network Analysis in practice

About Ken Thompson

Ken Thompson delivers keynote conference speeches, workshop facilitation and in-house consultancy in four key business areas:

1. Creating High Performing Teams in enterprises including Virtual and Mobile Teams (based on the Bioteams Book)
2. Establishing effective Collaborative Business Networks enabling companies to co-operate effectively in areas such as sales and product development (based on the book - The Networked Enterprise)
3. How to use the latest social media technologies including blogging and online communities to promote enterprises, brand, organisation or event
4. Development of graphical on-line interactive Business Dashboards and What-if Simulators for organisations to support Performance Improvement, Strategy Development and Executive Team Development.

   
   Tags: Social Networks, social software

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