There are many different roles people play in a social network - and therefore different measures to indicate the "strength" on has in each of those roles.  And the roles are very different.  There are those in very central roles - people who are highly connected because either they know who to contact for information, OR because they have a lot of valuable information that many people need.  There are the "connectors" - those who link different networks with each other, and therefore provide the conduits through which information flows between the networks (ever wonder how someone in a completely different part of a business knows what is going on?  Find the connector between the units - most likely someone not thought of that way).

To create an social index, you'd have to define the value of each of these roles to the organization (not a bad idea), and then create the index based on that.  Further, the organization needs to understand the content of the information that flows through the networks, and how this improves or inhibits individual and organizational performance.  Like many metrics, a "social score" in and of itself won't have much value to the organization without relating it to other business measures.

All things that Knowledge Infusion is working on these days!

Yes, and then we can elect the most popular person in the organization as Homecoming King/Queen.  Then 20 years down the road we learn that the person ran into some tough times and is now working at a self-service gas station so they can make their trailer payments.

Sorry...High School flashback.

It's about the information flow and how to create organizations that allow information to flow freely for all.  I see it more as a function of the organization than the individiual.

Really great discussion happening here in this forum, and I am glad to have a chance to comment.  I am interested in this topic from two perspectives, one as an instructor of Human Resources Technology, where I am always trying to develop and present the latest information on tools and technologies and their impact on the HR practice; and two as someone who has introduced and advocates the use of so-called 'social' technologies in the enterprise. One recurring theme I have noticed in my activities, is the influence of authority and performance review implications on the users of social technology.

What I mean is, in class I can compel my students to create wiki pages, participate in content development in a collaborative mannner, require them to create a blog or an account on Twitter and the like, and they do, driven in large part by the authority I wield as an instructor.  If tasks are not carried out in the prescribed manner, using the tools that I assign, then there is a consequence, the loss of points, and possibly a poor grade.  In two years of requiring the adoption of these social tools, I have found this authority to be more than effective, in driving the desired behavior, be it collaboration, shared content creation, etc. And most students, once they begin to understand the power and utility of these tools, become willing evangelists and many have returned to their workplaces and implemented some of these same tools.

In my efforts to deploy some of these same social tools in the enterprise, I have been met with consistently less success and enthusiasm.  'Real' employees are not typically compelled to adopt these tools, to explicitly participate in community collaboration in an open manner, and therefore many times fail to adopt these tools in a fashion that likely would benefit the organization.  Essentially, employees will continue to operate as usual unless otherwise incented.  The allure of a fancy new Web 2.0 tool often is not as enticing as we the implementers of these tools would like.  Should then the employees be managed and 'scored' on their use of these tools as a method of encouraging and promoting their adoption?  I think this was the initial question that Professor McAfee meant to explore in his series of posts on the topic. Essentially, does 'authority' in the form of performance rating scores need to be applied to these tools to help ensure adoption?  An interesting question, I don't know the answer yet, but I think in a year or two it will certainly become more clear.

Thanks for the chance to add my thoughts.

I truly believe that just like we know in an organization who our "go-to" people are, we will soon create the same type of structure using social media.  The concept is not really a score, but based on what we are looking for, where we are most likely to find relevant, timely and presence based information.  I think that the idea of creating a SCORE is about as bad as creating a PERFORMANCE REVIEW rating.  We will create something though that tells us "directionally" if we are on the right path.

I don't believe there is any one answer to this question, as it depends greatly on where the organization is in terms of people management process.  I have seen just as many people leap at the chance to use this technology as those that have shied away from it or just plain don't understand it.  Ultimately, the answer for the individual organization comes down to how its members relate the social patterns to their governing values and processes.

Simply measuring the score just to see how actively used a network is doesn't really help much, other than potentially serve as a metric to prospective members.  But when we relate this level of scoring - not only at the community or network level but even down to the individual - we can see some highly useful and interesting touchpoints emerge.  The big push that I've seen to date on social networking in a business world is connecting individuals to expertise as quickly as possible.  Certainly the community will rate contributors and contributions, and these ratings may well serve as the baseline for the social index.  But this is just the first step.

Consider applying what we learn from the social index to succession or workforce planning.  Traditionally, candidates for succession or opportunity pools are selected from a list that managers and HR leaders collect and evaluate, primarily on personal opinion, performance scores, competencies, and goal achievement.  Naturally, these focus on the person's job, and what the manager knows about the individual.  The benefit we gain from using social indicators is that we can now look beyond what we've traditionally collected, and expose other areas of influence they have.  How connected is the individual with other departments?  How many times has that person been sought out to provide help in areas not directly visible to his or her manager?  How many times has the individual contributed to the community, and what has the community thought of the contributions?  These are example questions to which we can learn answers by analyzing the social patterns, and ultimately, merge with performance scores, competency evaluations, education metrics, and other indicators to gain a fuller appreciation of how this individual fits in with the larger collective. 

I believe that having the ability to create a social index and use that as a means to locate thought leaders and people of high influence will become a critical metric as we look at the bigger strategic picture of HCM.  But, it will only be one of many metrics, and must be taken in context with the others. It will also greatly depend on how open the organization is, and how ready it is to put social networking in place.

Good points, Josh.  There's a difference, though, between what HR considers a "score" (read: evaluation of one's worth to the organization and as such, ultimately, how much the company should be willing to compensate that individual) and what the network itself thinks of the contributions of that person.  You're right, traditional scores can be gamed, because typically, it's a single person or committee doing the scoring.  The rules are relatively fixed.  The beauty of the score emergent from the network itself is that there is no one in the ivory tower looking at you with a magnifying glass.  The power of generating the score from the network is that it's not reliant on one or a few people's opinions, but rather, that of the collective.

The other benefit of thinking of the score apart from HR driven is that the game is always changing.  The rules change, because new members join and old members leave.  New discussions are brought to light, new expertise is made available.  More people are thinking of more connections that previously were ignored because they had nothing to do with a person's job description - the province of HR.  But how many people do you know do just what the job description states?