When searching for literature on tools and methods for measuring social capital I found a useful article called Measurement of Social Capital(a cup cake to the one who guesses my search words). In part 2 of the article a whole list of specific tools for gathering data about networks. And in part 3 quantitative and qualitative methods are discussed. As I’m trying to make a list of tools (and ressources eventually) on the rather dusty wiki and at the same time writing a working paper on the measurement of social capital, I would very much like to hear if anybody knows of any good overview articles on methods and tools regarding social capital?
Archive for February, 2008
…was the main topic of last week’s first meeting in the Danish UX-network. I hoped that we would have discussed which UX-methods to apply to social software, because as I see it (from my limited experience though) UX and social software has different implications than if you’re doing more traditional stuff. I truly believe that when doing user research you have to focus more broadly on culture, communication, networks, relations, social capital in other words, because the technology has to be designed with relations in mind instead of “just” people or features for that matter.
However we ended up discussing the phenomena of web2.0 more than UX and web2.0- I’m to blame, I know - and it turned out interesting anyway. At least I’m glad that we (Wemind) was invited by 1508 to join in, and I look forward to contributing to the goals of the network: To share knowledge and make professional standards for UX in Denmark.
I don’t know much about the study itself, but it sure looks interesting. A group of researchers at the University of Nevada are doing a survey investigating blogs’ effect on trust and social interactions. How ever it would be even more interesting if they provided a bit of information about context etc. But do go and check it out!
Furthermore you can get af copy of a report on a previous study of social capital by emailing reza.vaezi@yahoo.com
Social Capital in Business - Why exchanging (immaterial) gifts will enhance productivity, innovation, and loyalty in organizations is a new white paper written by my colleague Thomas Møldrup and I. What is Social Capital? Who builds and maintain Social Capital - and how can Business profit from it? That is some of the questions raised in the paper.You can download it here - the paper is in english, but the downloadpage is still in danish. If you experience any problems, please contact me directly at jane at wemind dot dk and I help you through the process.