SMA

Figure 2 shows the two suspects and

Social Network Analysis of Steroid Usage in Baseball

(www.orgnet.com)

When the Mitchell Report on steroid use in Major League Baseball [MLB], was published, people were surprised at
who and how many players were mentioned. The diagram below shows a human network created from data found in
the Mitchell Report. Baseball players are shown as green nodes. Those who were found to be providers of steroids
and other illegal performance enhancing substances appear as red nodes. The links reveal the flow of chemicals --
from provider to player.
Social Networking for Knowledge Management Examples
www.orgnet.com
• Managing the 21st Century Organization
• Networks of Adaptive/Agile Organizations
• Best Practice: Organizational Network Mapping
• Discovering Communities of Practice
• Data-Mining E-mail
• Finding Leaders on your Team
• Post-Merger Integration
• Knowledge Sharing in Organizations
• Innovation happens at the Intersections
• Partnerships and Alliances in Industry
• Decision-Making in Organizations
• New Organizational Structures
Figure 2 shows the two suspects and

Knowledge Sharing Network: Finding Experts

(www.orgnet.com)

Organizational leaders are preparing for the potential loss of expertise and knowledge flow due to
turnover, downsizing, outsourcing, and the coming retirements of the baby boom generation. The
model network (previous chart) is used to illustrate the knowledge continuity analysis process.

Each node in this sample network (previous chart) represents a person that works in a knowledge
domain. Some people have more / different knowledge than others. Employees who will retire in 2
years or less have their nodes colored red. Those who will retire in 3-4 years are colored yellow.
Those retiring in 5 years or later are colored green.

A gray, directed line is drawn from the seeker of knowledge to the source of expertise. A-->B
indicates that A seeks expertise / advice from B. Those with many arrows pointing to them are
sought often for assistance.

The top subject matter experts -- SMEs -- in this group are nodes 29, 46, 100, 41, 36 and 55.
The SMEs were discovered using a network metric in InFlow that is similar to how the
Google search engine ranks web pages -- using both direct and indirect links.

Of the top six SMEs in this group, half are colored red[100] or yellow[46, 55]. The loss of person 46
has the greatest potential for knowledge loss. 90% of the network is within
3 steps of accessing this key knowledge source.
Figure 2 shows the two suspects and

Knowledge Sharing in Organizations: Finding Experts