So… How would a SuperConnector use it?

I designed 3 different prototypes for different types of users.

Version 1: a tool for someone who knows Excel.

learning curve: LOW

Step 1: choose a topic. Let’s say that you want to make introductions to people who are interested in startups or draper university

Step 2: right click and select “Sort Sheet Z to A”.

Step 3: get a Tfidf (term frequency inverse document frequency) score ranking of people who have shared the most important keywords associated in the topic you chose (words related to startups and draper university in this case)

Version 2: a tool for those who hate Excel and love pretty graphs

Learning curve: Slightly Medium

Step 1: choose a topic. Let’s say you want to introduce people to Kelly to talk about photography

Step 2: type in “Kelly” and “ photography”

Step 3: you get a mini graph showing top 50 people (the surrounding nodes) you can introduce to Kelly (the center node). The lines that are connecting surrounding nodes with the center node are called “edges.” The color of the edges gives you the relative scales of “thought leadership” ranking. Deep purple = most interested. Light purple = relatively less interested.

Version 3: a tool for those who like data buffet and network graphs

Learning Curve: High

similar to the company Quid that has in-house consultants to analyze their network graphs.

The graph above maps the SuperConnector’s friends & topics onto a network graph. The purple boxes represent “topics”. The small orange boxes are the top 3% thought leaders for one specific topic (purple box).

The cool thing about this graph is that the software, Gephi, allows you to zoom in and out of the graph by scrolling your mouse. I imagine that the SuperConnector can use this feature to (1) get a broad perspective of his entire network, and to (2) closely analyze the relationships between each communities and each person.

Below are some examples of how he would use it:

First, he can look for bridges to find people who often share thoughts in multiple topics. By definition, bridge is A node linking groups which connect and exchange information only through that specific node. Critical role in innovation and knowledge sharing. It will serve as a place to look for multidisciplinary individuals who can bring in different perspectives to a group. For example, the graph above suggested the SuperConnector to introduce this person to the “city-building” group to share her perspective on “effect human problem” related topics.

The next screenshot gives another example showing that the SuperConnector can make an introduction for a friend who is looking for someone to chat about relationship in the rationalist-way.

Reflection

I’m happy to have a chance exploring ways to solve human connection problems with data science. However, the solution only solves half of the issue. In the end, it would still require the Super Connectors to create a group conversation, or create a gathering, or write that introduction email to connect those people. As my generation travels further and our networks grow larger, we have the options to choose who we want to surround ourselves with. Although the SuperConnector didn’t end up finding the tools useful, I hope that this project will inspire others to start thinking about ways to scale meaningful connections. Perhaps using text messages data is not the best approach in this context. Perhaps I can put more work on building a more optimal model. I would still love to see a world where we have a friendly CRM that makes it easier for us to be the leader of starting a new community/ or growing an existing one.