http://innovationinsight.com/blog evolving research for new media Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:14:21 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en OK, I have to post about a growing pet peeve.  I'm a very, very small lone voice against the vast and growing trend of referring to online social networking applications / platforms (MySpace, FaceBook, white label platforms, etc.) as "social networks".  While social networking applications contain, and are a type ... http://innovationinsight.com/blog/2008/social-networking-applications-%e2%89%a0-social-networks/ Recently, I was called to document quality control / quality assurance steps for a public relations / communications research proposal. I thought it was a useful topic, and worth summarizing some of what I've learned over 15 years of scientific research administration and working as a PR / marketing ... http://innovationinsight.com/blog/2008/quality-control-for-the-research-process/ Last February, I posted about an automated sensor/logger device by researchers at MIT for the purpose of automated real-time discovery of human social networks. As interesting as that device is - and the implications for smaller, cheaper successor devices - I believe that the trend toward increasing computing power, ... http://innovationinsight.com/blog/2008/reality-mining-more-tools-for-automated-network-discovery/ Recently, Wired posted an article that demonstrates that the USDOD's struggle with social media continues unabated - "Air Force Backtracks on Social Network Ban". Part of the problem is generational, and part of it is organizational. The generational part is the military is coming to a crash realization that the ... http://innovationinsight.com/blog/2008/more-notes-on-social-media-and-the-military/ The concepts of "betweenness centrality" and "structural holes" are some of the most powerful in the social network analysis toolset (pun intended - but forgive me for lumping the two concepts together for this post). In a nutshell, high betweenness indicates that the overall network is disproportionally ... http://innovationinsight.com/blog/2008/network-position-research-negotiation-advantage/ About eight years ago, I wrote a paper for CUED (now the International Economic Development Council) entitled "Methods for Generating Useful Databases when Industry Codes Fail." The gist of the paper was that most industry and market data is available based upon NAICS industry classifications or some similar proxy. ... http://innovationinsight.com/blog/2008/the-key-obstacles-to-researching-innovation-industries/ Social media analytics providers are offering increasingly sophisticated tracking tools, dashboard systems, and market research report products. I've taken several months to familiarize myself with the types and levels of products and services that are out there, and there are more almost every day. However, as I continue ... http://innovationinsight.com/blog/2008/selling-analytics-to-the-long-tail/ PC Magazine published a February 27 article "The Online Hunt for Terrorists." It focuses on the work of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the University of Arizona, and in particular their Dark Web project. In my recent post "Military Social Media Intelligence", I categorized part of the US ... http://innovationinsight.com/blog/2008/social-media-recon-mining-for-terrorists/ I was recently visiting with Ken and Elaine Lyons, the founders of the Independent Data Collection Center about telephone surveys, particularly CATI (computer assisted telephone interviews). The IDCC specializes in providing rigorously dependable and statistically valid data from focus groups, phone surveys, and other data collection methods, allowing ... http://innovationinsight.com/blog/2008/phone-surveys-and-gen-y/ The March/April issue of MIT Tech Review has an interesting article, "Between Friends: Sites Like Facebook Are Proving The Value of the Social Graph" (nods to Nathan Gilliat and Matthew Hurst -whose work is cited- for breaking this on their blogs). Overall, this article provides some great examples of how sociograms ... http://innovationinsight.com/blog/2008/vizualizing-the-social-web/