CRACKING THE FOUNDATION: Podcast interview with Kathleen Carley, Ph.D., director of Carnegie Mellon's Center for Computational Analysis of Social and Organizational Systems (CASOS)

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Have you ever heard the saying, it's not what you know, but who you know? Do you, perhaps, have some experience that supports that old saying?

Dr. Kathleen Carley at Carnegie Mellon University has dedicated a career to figuring out networks and the flow of knowledge -- not those neatly drawn solid and dotted lines connecting names and titles on the company org chart. No, she is interested in the shadow network behind the org chart, where and how the real work gets done. Who's the person in the group who really knows how to do that job? No, not the guy listed as the division chief -- you know -- the real expert. Who's the person who can direct you to that expert? It's probably not the VP. (I doubt anyone who's worked in the modern corporation doesn't know exactly what I'm talking about.)

The reasons for understanding an enterprise's social network are more practical than esoteric. A clear view of this shadow-network can help you to understand how your organization might respond to changes such as layoffs or a merger. Carley and her team use scientific methods and technological tools to deconstruct this complex web of interaction, including metrics, data analysis, and computer simulations that study interactions via email, phone exchanges, and more.

Join us for a conversation with a pioneer who tries to predict future behavior within entities from corporations to terrorist cells by using high-tech means to map the most fundamental of human structures.

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Resources

Center for Computational Analysis of Social and Organizational Systems (CASOS)

Disconnect the Dots; Maybe We Can't Cut Off Terror's Head, but We Can Take Out Its Nodes

Bio

Kathleen Carley is a professor at the Institute for Software Research International in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. She is the director of the center for Computational Analysis of Social and Organizational Systems (CASOS), a university wide interdisciplinary center that brings together network analysis, computer science and organization science (www.casos.ece.cmu.edu) and has an associated NSF funded training program for Ph.D. students. She carries out research that combines cognitive science, dynamic social networks, text processing, organizations, social and computer science in a variety of theoretical and applied venues. Her specific research areas are computational social and organization theory; dynamic social networks; multi-agent network models; group, organizational, and social adaptation, and evolution; statistical models for dynamic network analysis and evolution, computational text analysis, and the impact of telecommunication technologies on communication and information diffusion within and among groups.

Production Credits

Dana Farver, Executive Producer, Communities Editor-in-Chief
Tom Parish, Audio Producer, Show Host
Kimberly Stone, Web Development Manager
Scott Ebner, Web Developer