• See also Living Maps Review Spring 2018 edition, with a paper by Drew Mackie and David Wilcox explaining social networks and how to map them. Download here.

We are using a range of tools to build network maps, and the most powerful for mapping people and organisations is a combination of the front-end Sumapp survey tool, and Kumu mapping software.

Sumapp allows you to email a survey to participants, inviting them to complete a profile of - for example - their skills, needs and interests. It also allows people to specify who they connect with, and if appropriate who they might wish to connect with.

The survey remains live, so people can update at any time. In addition, Sumapp will display the evolving map to participants within the survey app. This makes it easy to restrict views of data to contributors.

Drew Mackie describes how we did this in an article about creating a map of London mappers and network builders.

That produced a map which could be could be:

• easily updated by participants, through the live survey links
• analysed in a variety of ways, and used to build a network
• used by participants to do their own network building
• displayed both as a network and geographic map

The same process can be used for projects or organisations with a designated email address.

The data gathered by Sumapp is held in a spreadsheet, which then feeds the online Kumu map. This offers the possibility of using the dataset for other communication requirements, subject to user consent. This can be obtained through the survey.

Here's a more general explanatory poster created by Drew.

In this poster Drew summarises how a map may be used.

Here's a poster summarising why we believe network building is needed at different levels in London