A helpful piece posted today on LLRX.com reminding us that just throwing what we 
think might be appropriate keywords into a search engine isn't the most
sensible research strategy.  While you might find that the title of the article
is not exactly what it is about, the content is helpful.  Here are the main points:

Least any of us think that Social Network Analysis is something new, please take the time to read this wonderful, albeit personal, history of the field.   Edward O. Laumann, of the University of Chicago, has been swimming in these waters for more than 40 years.  His address to the International Network of Social Network Analysis, 26th Annual Sunbelt Conference in Vancouver, Canada, April 2006, tells much about how we have arrived at the current level of SNA

See “A 45-Year Retrospective of Doing Networks”
http://www.insna.org/Connections-Web/Volume27-1/8.Laumann.pdf

More from Directions Magazine

''MapInfo Embraces Web Services
by Adena Schutzberg, Executive Editor

I'm
trying to remember how many years ago it was that I first heard the
vision of Web services for GIS. I suspect it was in the mid/late 1990s.
The big Web service on everyone's list? Geocoding, also known as
“locationally enabling datasets.”
With MapInfo Professional v8.5, that vision is reality.

Moshe Binyamin, senior product manager, gave me the tour, just as the product was announced for release
on June 6 of this year. In this release MapInfo laid the groundwork for
the
desktop product to interact with Web services of many kinds, including
SOAP and XML (thus RSS). This core technology allows developers to
connect MapInfo Pro to existing Web services “with a really minor
development effort that utilizes XML” per Binyamin.

The first example shown was a connection to Salesforce.com,
an online customer relationship management
service. MapInfo developers created a sample application using MapBasic
that, once loaded, allows users to access data records from a Salesforce.com
account and place customer locations on the map. Alternatively, the
user can directly link back and display full record information in the Salesforce.com app by clicking on the map.

Geocoding customer  data from Salesforce.com

A
second example illustrated pulling in Yahoo traffic (via an RSS feed)
to a MapInfo map. Yahoo uses its own XML format for this data which
MapInfo had to “decipher” to make the application work. Most feeds,
Binyamin suggested, would need some sort of custom parsing to be fully
useful. The MapInfo tool automatically pulled the central ZIP Code from
the existing
map, allowed for a magnification level (10 mile radius or more) and the
ability to select traffic data based on severity. This tool and its
source code will be included as one of the sample applications that
will ship with MapBasic v8.5.…'' Read more

Mapping the World : An Illustrated History of Cartography – by Ralph E. Ehrenberg

Mapping the World
is a collection of cartographic treasures that spans thousands of years
and many cultures, from an ancient Babylonian map of the world etched
on clay to the latest high-tech
maps of the earth, seas and the skies above. With more than one hundred
maps and other illustrations and an introduction and running commentary
by Ralph E. Ehrenberg, this book tells a fascinating story of
geographic discovery, scientific invention and the art and technique of
mapmaking. From National Geographic, 2005.
Source: Directions Magazine

We
don't know if there has as yet been any empirical research done on how
interested media consumers are in online crime mapping — and how good the coverage is —  but there is a body of
literature debating readers' interest in crime per se.  It would
seem to be a pretty good bet, though, that if people are interested in
crime AND if more and more are going online via broadband, that
some dynamic crime maps would get some hits. 

See, too: Paulsen, Derek J.  “WRONG SIDE OF THE TRACKS: EXPLORING THE ROLE OF NEWSPAPER COVERAGE OF HOMICIDE IN SOCIALLY CONSTRUCTING DANGEROUS PLACES.” Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture, 9(3) (2002) 113-127

Sometimes
journalists have a tendency to be too literal.  We want to ask a
question and we want the response to be a quote that is without
ambiguity.  One that's fills in some of the space between our
anecdotes.  But other times, we need tools that work like a
periscope, a device that allows us to not look at the object directly
but through a helpful lens.  Such periscopes for analyzing the
economy are indirect indicators.



Monday's
(5 Dec. 2005) NYTimes' Business Section was loaded with references to
such indicators that journos could keep in mind when looking for
devices to show and explain what's happening.  Check out “What's Ahead: Blue Skies, or More Forecasts of Them?”   Be sure to click on the link “Graphic: Indicators From Everyday Life“


Another indirector was mentined Sunday on National Public Radio in “Economic Signs Remain Strong“  There, an economist said he tracks changes in the “titanium dioxide” data, the compound is used in all white paint and reflects manufacturing production. 

Kudos to Derek Willis and Adrian Holovaty of The Washington Post for the Washingtonpost.com site “U.S. Congress Votes Database.”  One element we find of recent and special interest is the “late night votes”
variables for both the House and Senate.  With a little more
probing and data slicing and dicing, it would make an interesting bit
of visual
statistics/infographics to do a longitudinal comparison of the time of
votes in various congresses.




This site/searchable database is a fine example of how investing in some basic data preparation
can create the potential for a ton of stories.  Why, for example, do
Democrats have such a preponderance (18 out of 20) of Representatives on the “missed
votes” list, but only 9 out of 20 on the similar list for the Senate?



This is
also a fine example of how a newspaper can do good things for itself
while doing good things for the community and readers.  This
database gives the WP reporters and editors a quick look-up of
Congressional activity, the kind of fact and detail that can enrich a
story.  At the same time, citizens can turn to this value-added
form of the public record to answer their own questions.



Derek Willis wrote to the news librarians listserv:



“Folks,



It's not part of a story or series, but the Post today launched a site

that may prove useful to your newsrooms or even as an inspiration to

learn Python: a congressional votes database that covers the

102nd-109th congresses (1991-present). Currently browsable, we're

working on adding a search engine and other features to it. Adrian

Holovaty, who works for washingtonpost.com, and I assembled the data

and he built the web framework to display it. All of the data is

gathered using Python, the database backend is PostgreSQL and the web

framework is Django.”

A
couple of articles have passed across our desk in recent days that
illustrate the impact — and  importance of understanding —
decentralized (or “distributed”) systems and complex adaptive systems.

For starters, take a look at “Reinventing 911
How a swarm of networked ­citizens is building a better ­emergency broadcast system.”
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.12/warning.html

Author Gary Wolf writes: “I've been talking with security experts about one of the thorniest
problems they face: How can we protect our complex society from massive
but unpredictable catastrophes? The homeland security establishment has
spent an immeasurable fortune vainly seeking an answer, distributing
useless, highly specialized equipment, and toggling its multicolored
Homeland Security Advisory System back and forth between yellow, for
elevated, and orange, for high. Now I've come [to Portland, Oregon] to take a look at a
different set of tools, constructed outside the control of the federal
government and based on the notion that the easier it is for me to find
out about a loose dog tying up traffic, the safer I am from a terrorist
attack.

“To understand the true nature of warnings, it helps to see them not
as single events, like an air-raid siren, but rather as swarms of
messages racing through overlapping social networks, like the buzz of
gossip. Residents of New Orleans didn't just need to know a hurricane
was coming. They also needed to be informed that floodwaters were
threatening to breach the levees, that not all neighborhoods would be
inundated, that certain roads would become impassible while alternative
evacuation routes would remain open, that buses were available for
transport, and that the Superdome was full.

“No central authority possessed this information. Knowledge was
fragmentary, parceled out among tens of thousands of people on the
ground. There was no way to gather all these observations and deliver
them to where they were needed. During Hurricane Katrina, public
officials from top to bottom found themselves locked within
conventional channels, unable to receive, analyze, or redistribute news
from outside. In the most egregious example, Homeland Security
secretary Michael Chertoff said in a radio interview that he had not
heard that people at the New Orleans convention center were without
food or water. At that point they'd been stranded two days.

“By contrast, in the system Botterell created for California,
warnings are sucked up from an array of sources and sent automatically
to users throughout the state. Messages are squeezed into a standard
format called the Common Alerting Protocol, designed by Botterell in
discussion with scores of other disaster experts. CAP gives precise
definitions to concepts like proximity, urgency, and certainty.
Using CAP, anyone who might respond to an emergency can choose to get
warnings for their own neighborhood, for instance, or only the most
urgent messages. Alerts can be received by machines, filtered, and
passed along. The model is simple and elegant, and because warnings can
be tagged with geographical coordinates, users can customize their cell
phones, pagers, BlackBerries, or other devices to get only those
relevant to their precise locale.”


Second item of interest
I'm sure many of you noted Dexter Filkins Pg1 lead story in the NYT on
Friday, 2 Dec. 2005.  The online version headline is “Profusion of Rebel Groups Helps Them Survive in Iraq.”  That, unfortunately, lacks the truth and insight of the print version headline:
“Loose Structure of Rebels Helps them Survive in Iraq — While Al Qaeda Gains Attention, Many Small Groups Attack on Their Own.“ 

It
seems that finally someone in the journalism community has figured out
that what's happening in Iraq — and around the world — is a
decentralize, CAS.  Too bad journalists — journalism educators, students and professionals — haven't been exposed to the
concepts and vocabulary to really present the problem in all its, ahem,
complexity.

This week's edition of GIS Weekly 
tells the tale of how another newspaper figured out that GIS could be a
vital tool for circulation.  Of course, many folks in the
newspaper industry knew that long before word reached the editorial
department, but no matter: more and more publishers and even some
editors are “getting it.”  See “The Cultivation of Newspaper Readership Using Segmentation Software” by Susan Smith. 

“
What was the company's initial investment in the software?
“On an annual basis it's about $20,000-$30,000,” commented [research director Forbes] Durey. “The
MapInfo software is priced in various stages. MapInfo's sales team was
very flexible in designing a pricing strategy to meet our current
needs. Our initial investment was $800-$900. We tested that for about a
year, and then we decided to dive in and use all the data and
capabilities that MapInfo offers. At this point, we purchased the full
set of capabilities from MapInfo's TargetPro software. Newspapers can
expect a varying degree of investment from $1,000 up to $30,000 or
more.”

“If you look at
the MapInfo investment we made, it equates to roughly 20 cents per
subscriber per year. What fraction of the value of the subscriber is 20
cents? In the newspaper business today it's a very small fraction.”

Serious Games Initiative

http://www.seriousgames.org/



The Serious Games Initiative is focused on uses for games
in exploring management and leadership challenges
facing the public sector. Part of its overall charter
is to help forge productive links between the
electronic game industry and projects involving the use of
games in education, training, health, and public policy.




Says information specialists Marylaine Block:


 “As one who believes nobody should be allowed to run for office until they have played


Sim City for at least six months, I think such games have enormous


potential for helping people explore complex social problems and possible


solutions.”