Introduction to Academy of Finland project on weak ties

1. Voiko heikkoja sosiaalisia
linkkejä vahvistaa
koneälyn avulla?
COBWEB-hanke
Suomen Akatemian ICT 2023 -ohjelma
@jnkka #weakties
Yhteistyössä: NOVI, IHTE ja IISLab

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Milgram (1967): six degrees of
separation, small-world networks
Granovetter (1973): weak ties are
a key source of competitive
advantage
Burt (1992): Structural holes
Newman (2001): researcher
networks are small-worlds
Pentland (2015): collaboration
structure is key predictor of
performance; weak ties are vital in
breaking echo chambers
How to facilitate the emergence of weak
ties to support knowledge work
productivity and innovation?

4. Use case example
“The system forms an extensive profile of John’s
interests and skills (keyword analysis) and his
social networks (social network analysis), based
on various open data online. “Hah, this is like
Tinder for professionals, interesting!” he laughs.”
“Third, Jin is a recently graduated graphic
designer with an interest in learning Finnish.”
“Next week in a open event with 200+
participants, John receives a notification that
also Jin happens to be there. He decides to grab
the opportunity on the go.”
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“Technically trivial, impossible in practice”

5. Action Design Research
• Ethnographic etc. research on user requirements: privacy,
ethics, control mechanics of measuring humans, …
• Collect knowledge worker profiles, e.g. publications and
social media streams for researchers
• Algorithms for calculating the similarity between the profiles
and the ”structural distance”
• Mapping existing networks structure, i.e. strong ties to avoid
"rematching”
• Visualizations and other means to present and recommend
matches and recommendations
• …in collaboration with selected stakeholder organizations
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6. Join the discussion!
PIs: hannu.karkkainen@tut.fi,
ossi.nykanen@tut.fi, thomas.olsson@tut.fi
#weakties
@jnkka, @jjussila, …
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7. Join the discussion!
PIs: hannu.karkkainen@tut.fi,
ossi.nykanen@tut.fi, thomas.olsson@tut.fi
#weakties
@jnkka, @jjussila, …
08.02.16 6