Mapping the Great Beyond: Identifying Meaningful Networks in

MAPPING THE GREAT BEYOND 19
A public diplomat faced with having to identify
useful hub points for online engagement might find
this tool useful for providing some start points when
leaving the safely walled garden of centralized
engagement. (A very limited variation of this could
be attempted through Flickrgraph.) 30
3.
Once the engagement has begun, the second option
can be taken a step further if other tools are available.
Specifically, with only a little resource it would be
possible to map the network with which you are
currently engaging to see who else is acting as hub
points in the network.
One option to achieve this is to map the incoming
links to a series of sites. This can provide an insight
into who is directing traffic toward a particular site
operated by the PD organization. On the map other
individuals or hubs with which an organization can
engage in future may become evident. Some may
already be known to the organization, others may
not; however, it matters less whether they are known
to the organization and more that they are known to
others dispersed throughout the network with which
the organization may not have direct contact.
How?
To demonstrate this method I enlisted the help of
MountainRunner, the CPD Blog, and Enduring
America, and used data from my own blog, Wandren
PD. 31 The data used here are via Google’s database