The list of names on the the Chicago 2016 Olympic Committee is very impressive -- intelligent people from important organizations. But as we have seen before, super stars do not necessarily make a super team. Chemistry is key to victory. Not only did Chicago have an all-star committee, they brought in other local Chicago stars, like Oprah, President and Michele Obama, et. al. to add their appeal to the effort. Yet, the Chicago 2016 Committee did not get the job done. Chicago was the first city eliminated in the rounds of voting. Was there no Chemistry in the Committee?
To gain insight into the group's chemistry I did a social network analysis looking for internal patterns of cooperation or competition. Is this group set up to win? The smart folks over at LittleSis.org have provided a relationship analysis around the Chicago 2016 Committee. They have gathered data on organizational memberships and interlocks amongst the committee as well as data on their donations. This is enough information for a two-mode [people to organizations] network analysis. I took the two-mode data and converted it to one-mode [people to people]. Links were formed based on the interlocks between each possible pair -- the more two people share organizational memberships and targets of donation the stronger their tie.
The strongest ties amongst Chicago 2016 Olympic Committee members is shown below -- these folks shared many organizational memberships and donated to many of the same individuals and groups. Notice two distinct clusters have formed.
Next we lower the bar for what a link is, and allow in more links. We see each cluster grow, in size and connectivity, but the two clusters do not connect.
Finally, we allow in even more ties and get a connection across cliques. Samuel Zell and Michael Sacks are the boundary spanners that connect the two cliques together. Doing a Google search we see that they are also connected via Helen Zell, Samuel's wife. Helen and Michael are both directors on the After School Matters board.
Our choices reveal who we are. The choices of the committee reveal that they may be two different groups with different interests, values, and approaches. Can they work together? Maybe this internal divide was another factor that contributed to the failed hosting bid?
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5 comments:
give enough information on the decision of the CIO. Are we sure they perceived this disjunction in the interestss of the Chicago 2016 Committee?
I've heard that the defence in the room was not briliant enough.
I believe that most decisions were already taken before the meeting. Thus the quality of the presentation did not influence so strongly.
In my personal opinion the election of an Olympic city is more a matter of impressing the commitee rtather than a question of cohesion in the group that defends a candidacy.
After all these claims, I found an argument that would support your analysis. Most winners were presented behind a strong leader deffending a united project full of faith and hope. (Think on Rio or on Barcelona). The existence of two groups with little common interests would be the proof of a lack of leadership.
Is this the insidious political divide rearing its ugly head once again? It's hard to believe a structure like this could NOT be a factor...
Fantastic approach. Here's an especially engaging view of the information we've collected over at LittleSis: http://littlesis.org/org/42343/Chicago_2016_Committee#interlocks
It would be great to see some more actionable journalism come out of this information. Let's make it happen!
This is some nice analysis! Might be helpful in understanding issues in other contexts as well:
- Organizational difficulties in large projects, or within companies
- Figuring out where to focus attention when setting up an experiment (i.e., psychological or sociological research)
Thanks for the share!
Fascinating, as always, Valdis. Who else would have thought of turning the social mapping lens on this subject?
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