Getting Started

Social network analysis was conceived of as a way of empirically studying group interaction not excluding the experience of the the members of the network.

	The Tipping Point is an extremely engaging, best selling book that touches on some of the considerations of SNA. His idea of "connectors," "salesmen," and "mavens" is not something you will find widely in SNA research, but Mark Granovetter once said that "it is the best description of what I do, I wish I had written it myself."
The Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg Malcolm Gladwell	While you are waiting for your copy of The Tipping Point to arrive from Amazon, you can read Malcolm Gladwell's New Yorker article that led to the book.
	FAS Research is the largest independent company that does full time network analysis in the world. This enjoyable presentation by narrator, Harald Katzmair and beautiful visualizations by the FAS team gives some idea of the cutting edge of SNA and business.
Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness Mark Granovetter	Part of why networks are useful is that they are embedded in networks that are in turn embeded in networks. This paper gives insight into this key issue.
The Strength of Weak Ties Mark Granovetter	No single paper has had as much influence on thinking about social networks as this one. It gives the basic ideas of how resources are distributed in society and how society is organized from a network point of view.
Orgnet	Valdis Krebs is a pioneer of using network analysis to help organizations function better. This site has a wide variety of readable information about networks.
	This book is about the properties of networks in general. Network research is being done in physics, chemistry, and other "hard" sciences and it is tantalizing that there may be underlying relationships.
	This book is a step-by-step guide on how to use the freeware software program Pajek to perform a variety of different analysis It is the best teach-yourself guide to the subject.
	This book provides a readable reminder that networks are a way to talk about people and human relations. It shows that relational thinking can lead to different conclusions about the social world we inhabit.