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Sources And Methods: The Potential of Social Network Analysis in Intelligence

From sourcesandmethods.blogspot.co.uk

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Mlik Sahib's curator insight, March 19, 2014 7:00 PM
"Finally, SNA is fundamentally a mathematical tool but is most useful in the decisionmaking process when the networks are visualized.  It is, without doubt, the visualization of these networks that tends to capture the most attention from the policymakers that intelligence units typically support.  This is both a blessing and a curse.  While it is easy to capture attention, explaining why the charts and graphs look the way they do is an art.  All too often, the initial excited reaction to these diagrams turns to boredom and confusion as analysts bog the decisionmakers down with the arcana of SNA.  In addition, creating these complex visualizations often stresses even the most powerful personal computers (the images of the simulation in Figure 8 above took approximately 2 hours to produce using a powerful desktop PC with two high end graphics cards).Like every analytic technique, SNA has great utility for the right question. Within its limits, SNA is unmatched and can be usefully applied to identify key individuals or organizations within a network, generate new leads and simulate the flows of information or money throughout a network.  SNA, however, remains just an answer, not the answer.  Used inappropriately or without a full understanding of the limits of the method and analysts will only be finding new and more technically sophisticated ways to fail.  That, then, is the primary job of the modern day analyst: making the judgment call of which techniques to use and when.  Equally as important as knowing when to use SNA is knowing when not to use it."
Saranne Davies's curator insight, March 20, 2014 5:10 AM

Worth a read.
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The Potential of Social Network Analysis in Intelligence

From www.e-ir.info

Within its limits, SNA can be applied to identify individuals or organizations within a network, generate new leads and simulate flows of information or money throughout a network.
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luiy's curator insight, January 17, 2014 8:53 AM

Social Network Analysis, as an analytic method, has inarguable applicability to the field of intelligence and is progressively reshaping the analytic landscape in terms of how analysts understand networks. For example, analysts currently use SNA to identify key people in an organization or social network, develop a strategic agent network, identify new agents and simulate information flows through a network. Beyond this, SNA can be easily combined with other analytic practices such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS), gravity model analysis or Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield (IPB) to create robust, predictive analyses.
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