Personas

Are you a structural hole? A connector? A peripheral specialist?  Don’t know what we’re talking about?  These are all roles that individuals can play within a social network. Most of us tend to naturally fall in to one of them but sometimes it is our explicit responsibilities that determines what role we play.

An example of a peripheral specialist may be an biomechanical engineer, working in a lab. That person is likely connected to a very narrow group of other specialists within their organization due both to their responsibilities (research) and the proclivities of the people who are likely in that role (focused). They are a peripheral specialist and rely on other people to spread the news about what they are doing to the rest of the organization.

Social Network Analysis is a method of uncovering and understanding networks of people and the different roles that they play. This in turn can help understand whether organizations and the people in them are optimally organized for the goals they want to achieve. If there is someone in a research role that spends an inordinate amount of time connecting with others that might reveal a good opportunity to move them into a more communications-oriented position.

So what role are you?

Broadcaster: This person distributes information to a large group of connections. In public networks, broadcasters are extremely valuable because they help spread messages broadly to many different sub networks.

Connector: This person is a liaison between most individuals within the network. They could also be a broadcaster or lurker, depending on their information sharing proclivities. Connectors are often not formally responsible for the group, but their expertise and connections make them indispensable. Their efforts are often overlooked by formal review, leading to burnout and/or a decision to focus on less essential activities that will be recognized and rewarded.  More on connectors in this paper by Rob Cross & Laurence Prusak.

Gatekeeper: Someone who controls the information coming into and out of a group. Gatekeepers wield a disproportionate amount of importance in a social network because they have the same power of connectors without having the same # of relationships. For this reason it’s important to build in redundancy, having connectors wade into subgroups to reduce risk if a gatekeeper decides to leave.

Lurker: Someone who is weakly connected to others in a network and who absorbs information and may share information in ways that cannot be tracked. Francois Gossieaux (one of our roundtable facilitators) wrote an interesting post on the value of active lurkers.

Peripheral Specialist: Someone who provides expertise to a network as needed, but who resides on the edge of the network. Often times they’re new to the network and desire to become more connected, but often they prefer to work alone or need to spend a significant amount outside the network to remain on the cutting-edge. There’s a great discussion on peripheral specialists in this paper by Rob Cross and Laurence Prusak.

Structural Hole: A person who is is the single and only connection between two groups and represents a risk to the cohesion of the network. Check out this article by Bruce Hoppe for more on how structural holes impact organizational collaboration.

We think social network analysis is a critical tool for understanding communities and the large ecosystems within which they operate. Patti Anklam – an expert in SNA and knowledge management – wrote Net Work, which is a great starting point to understand how these networked structures are changing how we work.

At The Community Roundtable we include experts like Patti in our weekly roundtable calls with our members – social media and community managers. The Community Roundtable is a virtual table where social media and community practitioners gather to meet, discuss challenges, celebrate successes, and hear from experts. We’re dedicated to furthering the discipline of community management, supporting early adopters with practical connections and shared best practices.

Apply to become a member of The Community Roundtable.