> The challenge is that these communication networks are informal, fluid, and nearly impossible to map.
I bet most large tech companies could have a fairly accurate map of the network in less than a week if they really wanted it. Simply look at every email and chat reply between two people and build a graph whose nodes are people and with edges whose strength is the number of those interactions. Done.
Of course, there are a lot of scary privacy implications and I'm sure there are a few execs who wouldn't want anyone to discover that, wow dude_in_power_x sure does sent a lot of chats to cute_indirect_subordinate_they_have_no_reason_to_interact_with.
But if and organization really did want a better sociological understanding of their workforce, they could build it.
Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) Tools. Google that and you will find many out of the box tools that tap into email, calendars, Slack, Teams, Google Workspace, et al.
I know someone who was building a product like this that they intended to sell for the purposes of improving M&A efficiency. You feed it slack, zoom, etc. info and then get a sense for "who needs to be in the room" at various levels, see where duplicated management effort is, and so on. Not sure where it went, but this was around 10 years ago.
I would gladly just tell my bosses who I'm talking to, how often, and about what areas. If that helps me I see no problem, just send me a survey to fill.
I bet most large tech companies could have a fairly accurate map of the network in less than a week if they really wanted it. Simply look at every email and chat reply between two people and build a graph whose nodes are people and with edges whose strength is the number of those interactions. Done.
Of course, there are a lot of scary privacy implications and I'm sure there are a few execs who wouldn't want anyone to discover that, wow dude_in_power_x sure does sent a lot of chats to cute_indirect_subordinate_they_have_no_reason_to_interact_with.
But if and organization really did want a better sociological understanding of their workforce, they could build it.