A network map of attendees at the ESRC's Beyond the Radar conference

1. Beyond the Radar conference Identifying Assets
All communities and organisations have assets. Assets can be a number of
mapping things: Four types of Network Interest
Drew Mackie and David Wilcox •Human: Staffing, Speakers, Skills, Knowledge, Experience, Research,
Volunteers, Ideas, Collaboration, Training, Facilitation, Event Network Thinker
The concept of network mapping is not new. It is common in the US and Management, Capacity Building, Management, Network Building A network thinker feels that the IDEA of networks applies to many real
Australia where the study of networks is recognised as a valuable way of
gauging the effectiveness of organisations and how they might develop. •Financial: Funding (both revenue and capital), money management world phenomena. There is an assertion that networks are the way
things work and that we need to adopt a network culture to be
Mapping is simple. A questionnaire asks people “who do you work with •Physical: Land, Premises, Equipment effective in the modern world. Thinkers don't necessarily know much
about the mechanics of networks but see networks as the right prism
most” and encourages respondents to think of around 6 examples. From
this information a map of nodes (organisations or individuals) can be
•Influence: Networks, Contacts, Power, Access, Representation, with which to view complex situations in communities and
organisations. In fact they may feel that analysis of networks is
Credibility, Networking
drawn. At the Beyond the Radar event we received 28 questionnaire somehow pointless - a bit like trying to analyse art or love.
responses. Each respondent was also asked to list the resources that they Identifying these is a useful start. But a mere list is not enough. We need
or the organisations they cited had. to know: Network Analyst
Analysts do know about the mechanics of networks. They
Asset mapping
•Who controls these assets? are familiar with concepts of centrality and use specialised
•Where they are located?
software to draw and analyse them. These diagrams and
As an organisation, whether public, private or community, knowledge of measures may seem abstruse and complicated but are the
what assets you control is vital to planning your future. These assets can •How they relate to each other? meat of the analyst's work. An analyst may not be a good
networker or capable of building a network but they do
be financial, physical, organisational or knowledge based. Knowing what •How stable they are? know how networks work.
you have let's you think better about what you want to do.
An asset map can be of two types: Network Builder
It is becoming clear that the predominantly needs based approach to
neighbourhood development has unfortunate consequences: •Geographic: the location of assets is depicted on Google Maps or a Network Builders are out there in the real world interacting
with other people who are members of various networks.
printed map of the area. This is good for showing capital assets -
•Areas are seen as "problems" to be solved and this perception buildings and land - but less good at showing asset ownership, skills
They will be good networkers themselves and probably
have a working knowledge of centrality but their key skill
percolates down to the people on the ground, both community and
and the more intangible assets like community networks. is being able to connect other people. They have
professional. Money is targeted at solving problems and supporting persuasive communication skills and are able to spot the
problem based organisations. The result is fragmented and partial •Organisational: mapping the network of organisations and usefulness of a potential link in creating, strengthening or
support and the sidelining of community strengths and resources. individuals allows us to see how the assets are distributed and extending a network.
controlled. Comparing the ownership of assets with their centrality in
•The solution to local problems is increasingly seen as external to the the network can show if they are deployed in the most effective way.
Networker
community - and this leads to all sorts of complaints about public This is the fun role. Networkers are
bodies: "when are they going to do something." and "why should we Specialist software can be used to plot the networks that connect out there doing it. At any conference the bars are full of them. Twitter
do it when they're paid to?" The possibility of locally generated action community groups and organisations and that link them to local and and Facebook are full of it. Networkers don't necessarily know the
networks they are part of. They know how to create and sustain links
is increasingly linked to external resources - staffing, funding etc - and national agencies. This can then assist planning the delivery of between themselves and other people. But what they will call "my
the lack of these becomes a justification for inaction. programmes and projects. network" is usually just a list of contacts and a list isn't a network.
Networks are made up of these individual but overlapping lists.
•The proliferation of bodies tasked to address local needs becomes a In the case of the TSRC conference, we had the opportunity to ask people Networkers often feel that the total network can't (or shouldn't) be
problem in itself. Local people often don't know who is responsible for what resources, skills and influence their own organisation and those that analysed and are too busy networking to be bothered.
what. Worse, these bodies are often in competition for funds and resist they cited had. The responses broke down into the categories shown below.
the collaboration that would maximise the use of scarce resources. We have also shown these assets allocated to each organisation on an
Thus, community effort at local level is often fragmented and this is online network map. Roll the mouse over an organisation and a list of The box above is an expansion of a slide that was shown at the
reinforced by the sporadic and partial availability of external resources. assets will pop up. Thus all the network and asset information collected at event, indicating different types of network interest. We suspect that
the event is available on the online map. most attendees were Networkers - interested in using the event to
extend the range of their contacts and generally to find out what is
Next Steps
going on in the field. The maps overleaf show the connections cited at
If the aim of Beyond the Radar is to promote the ideas generated at the event, then the next main role is that of Network Builder and Influencer. That the event and the patterns of linkage that emerge. A further map
involves a communications strategy to map wider interests, develop propositions to promote, recruit champions and use a range of online and (only accessible online) attaches Assets to each organisation in an
other tools to connect people and enable communication animated graphic that allows users to explore the “content” of the
networks.

2. Beyond the Radar
conference mapping
This map shows:
•The connections between
participants and the organisations with
which they work most as cited in the
questionnaire administered at the conference.
•The centrality of the organisations
(indicated by the size of the node) as calculated
from the web of connections that results.
The map divides into three sections (denoted by red dotted lines):
•A large connected set of organisations in the upper left.
•A smaller connected set in the upper right.
•A set of fifteen small sets at the bottom.
This is a typical result for a conference map (an identical configuration to the maps generated
from the Big Society Network conference in London and from the Big Society up North event
Map 1 - Connections
in Sheffield. The unconnectedness of many of these organisations into the larger picture
indicates that they are:
•Locally based
•Concerned with special interests not shared by others on the map
Results
The most central organisations are, unsurprisingly, those most closely involved in organising
the event:
•The Third Sector Research Centre (TSRC)
•The Barrow Cadbury Trust
•Communities and
Local Government (CLG)
Several organisations with close connections
to these most central bodies also benefit
in terms of centrality:
•The North West Tenants & Residents’
Assembly
•Urban Forum
•Transition to Adulthood Alliance
Over half of those who completed the questionnaire
had small, localised or interest based networks.

3. Beyond the Radar conference mapping
The map on this page shows the main clusters of organisations more clearly:
•The Red Cluster is based on the Barrow Cadbury Trust.
•The Blue Cluster is based on TSRC,
•The Pink Cluster is based on CLG.
The questions posed by the two maps are:
•How do the 15 unconnected clusters become more connected into the larger cluster? This Map 2 - Clusters
assumes of course that such connection might be beneficial for them. The conference is a
start and will establish a network of communication through publication, website, social
media etc. This larger network is essentially about conversations - the spread of If the aim of Beyond the Radar is to promote the ideas generated
information and ideas. The small clusters are about doing things together. at the event, then the next main role is that of Network
Builder and Influencer. That involves a communications
•The larger cluster is a mixture of research and action bodies. How do they work together strategy to map wider interests, develop propositions to
and is the primary role of the resulting network to be research or common action?
promote, recruit champions and use a range of online and other
•What are the next steps in drawing tools to connect people and enable communication
the network together and how can this
help the on the ground work of its
members?
One of the main aims of the the network
analysis and online development is to
increase the capacity of those involved
to influence others. To achieve that,
we would need to undertake some
mapping of wider contacts, and develop
a communications strategy to engage
them. rs