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January 14, 2003
relationship mapping
In the midst of a hectic and bleary day, I participated in a conference
call for members of the 
steering
committee. I proposed an idea that seemed to get a lot of support. Sociologists
sometimes survey individuals or organizations, asking them with whom they
interact most. They create a database showing all the individuals and
their mutual relations. They then use
"relationship-mapping" software to spit out maps that cluster
all the most closely related individuals together and use lines to show
how they are linked. If we did this to all the groups involved in the
field of deliberative democracy, then we could see which ones work together,
which ones are completely separate, and which organizations serve as bridges
between clusters of groups. This is the kind of analysis that political
organizers have always used; software can help to do it more easily and
thoroughly.
Posted by peterlevine at January 14, 2003 05:16 PM