For my final project, I'd like to uncover more of these "extra-ITP" connections between ITPers, focusing on "social bridges", that is, people not connected to ITP (or even, perhaps, NYU) who are known to two or more ITPers. Hopefully I'd be able to uncover enough of these bridges to build an interesting image of how ITPers are connected in unexpected ways.

As an example, here's a simple graph of four people at ITP. Will and I both know Melissa Elwyn, a classmate of ours at Vassar:

Will and Yulia both worked together at Business Edge, along with someone named Tom:

And Cindy Yang knows Flash guru Manny Tan, who Will used to work for:

To collate a list of "social bridges", there are a few strategies that could be used. Either I could collect a small group of ITP volunteers, locking them in a room and engaging them in some sort of "speed dating" process to uncover connections. Or I could send out a note to the ITP listserv, offering a prize to whomever can uncover the most non-ITP links from themselves to other ITPers.

As a second step, I think it would be interesting to present that list to the larger ITP community at large to see if anyone else knows those people. So, in the example above, I would post this:

Hi all,

For an experiment I'm doing for Clay's Networks class, I was wondering if any ITPers know these people personally:

» Manny Tan, flash guru
» Tom, an employee at Business Edge
» Melissa Elwyn, Vassar '97

Thanks, James

Those responses could then be integrated into the larger map.

I realize that this project is more a mapping than building a network, but I think it could be really interesting if enough data is collated. Just by talking to a few people, I'm optimistic that enough to these links exist to make for an interesting map.