The choices we make reveal who we are

People make choices every day -- for themselves and for their organizations.

What to buy? Who to hire? What policy to implement? What stand to take?

The choices we make reveal who we are.

Data is everywhere these days -- often in simple lists. Lists often reveal who chose what or whom. All Internet shoppers know the famous Amazon list -- "people that bought this item also bought these items...". On the surface this appears to be a simple list, but underneath it reveals much about the Amazon customers making choices. Amazon book data can reveal much about the sociology around book purchases, especially political book purchases.

Transparency in government is all the rage these days -- especially in Gov 2.0 circles. Organizations are making all sorts of political and governmental data available to the public. One of the best at doing this is OpenSecrets.org. Recently they provided a list of all of the lobbyists in the health care industry who are busy trying to influence that debate. Although the list itself is useful, there are hidden patterns in the data. The list reveals emergent structures in the health care industry -- it reveals non-obvious connections between the major players.

A map of hidden ties in the pharmaceutical industry is displayed below. The data is from the list of pharmaceutical companies and their lobbyists from OpenSecrets.org. Just like common board members spread similar messages and ideas throughout the corporate and non-profit worlds, do common lobbyists have a similar affect? What does the choice of a lobbyist reveal about the intentions of a corporation?


What is different about this network map is that the links are what we normally consider as nodes -- the links are the lobbying firms that connect their clients into clusters of shared thinking and perspectives. Each group of colored links represent a specific lobbying firm that has been hired by the nodes/clients it connects.

Someone who knows an industry well would be able to spot funny associations in a map like the above:

why are these orgs clustered together? Org X and Y have come out publicly on opposing sides of the issue yet, they use the same advisors, are they really more alike than they pretend to be?

Org Z has always been "no comment" on the issue, yet they are strongly clustered with those who are highly in favor.

Org Q straddles the pro and anti clusters, what does this mean? Are they playing both sides? Are they not sure? Are they having internal pro/anti battles with different divisions choosing different advisors?

Displaying nodes as linking structures is another way to visualize what are called two-mode networks.

An interactive network map of the above is available now!