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Social Networking: If Only We Knew What We Know

More than 10 years before Facebook made social networking a household term, Noshir Contractor predicted that "the network would become the organization." Contractor, industrial engineering and management science, communication studies, and management and organizations, studies how social networks and the cyberinfrastructure that support them have fundamentally transformed the way we work, play, and live. In recent years, his team has examined networks in a wide variety of contexts including communities of practice; research communities in science, engineering, and medicine; and societal justice; disaster response; and online worlds (like Second Life).

A common refrain heard in 21st-century organizations is "If only we knew what we know." A recent study found that companies lost $31.5 billion due to "inability to find information" that already existed. Another study found that the lack of effective networking among researchers and practitioners causes massive delays in the discovery and dissemination of scientific advances. Contractor's research program develops sophisticated tools and methods to address these challenges.

The Science in Networks in Communities (SONIC) research lab, directed by Contractor, investigates how people create, maintain, and dissolve their networks; why they become (or don't become) invested in contributing to a network's vitality; and what consequences for the individuals and their networks result. Ultimately, SONIC's goal is to help networks function at optimal levels. Toward this goal, Contractor and his interdisciplinary research team of social scientists, computer scientists, engineers, ethnographers, and humanists are developing cutting-edge social network theories and visual analytic tools to help us discover our networks, diagnose the health of our networks, and design more effective networks.

For the past 15 years, Contractor has been continuously funded by the National Science Foundation, with additional funding from the National Institutes of Health, NASA, the Army Research Institute, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation.

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Office for Research   633 Clark Street, Evanston, IL 60208-1108   |   847-491-2101

The Office for Research promotes, facilitates and enhances research at Northwestern University.

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