FLINK ON TÄÄLLÄ TÄNÄÄN
Ennen vanhana elokvuajuhlilla dokattiin, katsottiin elokuvia, ystävystyttiin kivan oloisiin ihmisiin ja rakennettiin tulevaisuuden yhteistyötä myöhäistunneilla. Nyt on FLINK.
Näin Sheffield kertoo uudesta aloitteesta:
Dear Doc/Fest Delegates
In a world first at Sheffield Doc/Fest (November 4-8), scientists will be observing a live event and commenting on how a social network is evolving as it happens. We all know that festivals are all about networking. But how are connections formed, between which people, what information is exchanged and who are the most important people in the network?
Social Network Analysis is a rapidly-expaning field of psychological research. It has been used in epidemiology to help understand how patterns of human contact aid or inhibit the spread of diseases in a population. Social network analysis is being used in the US as a tool for mass surveillance to determine whether or not US citizens are political threats. It is increasingly being used by human resources departments to assess which individuals in a company are key to the success of that company. Indeed, social network analysis is an increasingly important field of scientific research, yet most people are unaware of it.
A live event, such as a festival, where people from all over the world come to mix and mingle, could present a golden opportunity for social network analysts, if they were able to translate how people network into data.
With funding from the Wellcome Trust, we have designed a networking tool that delegates will love to use. It’s called FLINK (your festival link) and festival delegates can use it to connect with people they want to meet and to organise their entire festival experience. This year, we are asking people to leave their business cards and fliers at home and to get FLINKing instead. Once registered, they can find out who else is at the festival, arrange to meet them, swap virtual business cards, even send samples of their films, all with great ease using computers, their mobile phones or specially-designed touch-screen kiosks activated by RFID chips in their delegate passes.
If two people meet and swipe on a console, they have swapped virtual business cards, along with a photo, a biography, a link to their website and a handy note for following up. If I send an SMS saying ‘promo Steven Spielberg I heard you like films about space’ to a special FLINK number, Steven Spielberg will instantly recieve a clip of my space film, along with a flyer, photos of the film and myself, my message, my contact details and a link to my website. Steven can then quietly delete it, get in contact with me to fund my film, request more information or pass it on to a colleague, all with one click of a mouse.
Every time a delegate swipes in, as they go about networking, they will be informed of their own individual position in the Doc/Fest social network. Facebook and Twitter might lead us to believe that the more connections we have, the better, but this only tells us so much. What really matters within the network is where those connections lead and who knits the network together. This is defined by the ‘betweenness’. Individuals with high betweenness are important within a social network as they govern what information is passed between groups of delegates.
Each delegate’s betweenness will be constantly fed back to them, with a brief explanation. Meanwhile, all this information about who is contacting who, what about, and who is reciprocating, will be analysed and displayed on large screens in public areas. This will be constantly updated, along with twitter-feeds and SMS comments on what is happening around the festival.
We will have two scientists on-hand to further analyse and interpret the data and provide regular updates about what is really happening at the festival.
The Scientists
Dr James Kilner is a Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellow based at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, UCL. His research focuses on human social interaction. He is interested in what brain processes enable us to understand another person’s intentions and desires just through observing their actions. LINK
Dr Nina Fefferman is an Assistant Professor at Rutgers University in Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources and the Center for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science. Her lab uses mathematical modelling to examine how behaviour can impact epidemic dynamics, how this could have shaped the evolution of social behaviour, and how to use these insights in pandemic preparedness planning. Her work is among the first to explore insights from virtual worlds to understand real-world responses to outbreaks.
In addition, both scientists will take part in a panel at Sheffield called Media Under the Microscope: How Popular Culture could Change the Face of Science (Saturday 07November 2009 13:45):
In the past, producers made films about science, but now it seems that dynamic is being turned on its head. Social networking models, massive multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft and even Zombie films are helping inform how viruses spread and are increasing our understanding of how we socialise and form networks. We discuss what it means for scientists and content producers and take a light-hearted look at what happens when the media world is put under the microscope. During the session we will also reveal the final results of the Doc/Fest networking system FLINK and find out who
were the best and worst networkers in the Docs community!
