Organization Network Analysis, from 1987 to the present

Organization Network Analysis session – introduction

Valdis Krebs (Ognet)
Organization Network Analysis, from 1987 to the present — what has changed and what has stayed the same

Valdis Krebs will review his 20+ years of  organizational network analysis (ONA) and discuss the practical organizational network research he has been involved in since 1997.

Valdis did his first social network analysis project in 1987, appyling AI search algorthms to network data instead of matrix-based algorithms.  With this initial success he continued to build a network analysis tool, using the AI-focused Prolog language.

In 1990, Krebs began to apply network analysis to HR issues with engineers and scientists at TRW in Redon Beach, CA.  One of the applications of ONA in HR was voted a Best Practice by HR Executive and by Tom Peters.  Next, Krebs started to work with IBM, which used his software and approach in their IBM Consulting Group, which later became IBM Global Services.  Valdis left the corporate world in 1995 and started his own ONA business.  Valdis has been doing full time network analysis consulting, training, research and software development and has participated in over 500 ONA projects since 1987 as a consultant, mentor or analyst.

With IBM and other clients, Krebs has investigated effects of networks on performance at the group and organizational level.  He and his colleagues have found key network patterns in successful organizations, especially around adaptability, agility and learning which he will dicuss in his Circuits of Profit 2011 talk.

In addition to organizational projects, Valdis has applied network analysis to projects in economic development, community action, covert and criminal networks, consumer data, business ecosystems, financial flows, political data, healthcare, network weaving and disease networks.  He applies the network analysis learning from one field to similar problems in other fields.