I have been back in the United States for about a week, but only now have found some time to get back to blogging. As I stated before my departure, the primary reason for my trip to Europe was to participate in the 30th meeting of the International Network of Social Network Analysts.
First, Aric Hagberg and I gave a workshop on using NetworkX to hack social networks. Given that it was the first time we had ever given this workshop, I was pleased with how well it went and the positive reception we received from the audience. It was encouraging to see so many researchers from academia, private corporations and the government interested in learning the mechanics of generating network data and analyzing it. That said, Sunbelt did reinforce my previous observation that academic researchers have a lot of catching up to do in terms of tools. There were several talks that indicated an unfortunate lack of technical expertise, which could easily be overcome with a minimal level of effort. Thankfully, conferences like Sunbelt allow for a people with many different talents to mix together and exchange ideas—and this norm was on display in Riva del Garda.Next, the panel session were a good mix of methodological research and substantive application. Despite some serious logistical impediments (heat, overcrowding, etc.), I was able to see some very interesting talks, and received some interesting feedback on my own research. Given the idyllic location of the conference, there were only a few times where most of the conference attendees were in the same place, which detracted from the networking opportunities—a somewhat shameful consequence, given it was a conference on social networking. The best interactions I had occurred while strolling the poster presentations. The biggest winners of the poster sessions were the dynamic duo of Mathieu Bastian and Sebastien Heymann, the purveyors of Gephi. We discussed potential future opportunities to interface Gephi with NetworkX, but Gephi itself was a huge hit at Sunbelt and I expect to see its beautiful graphs on display in future network papers.
It appears that Sunbelt XXXI will be in St. Pete Beach, Florida, and I hope to see an even larger crowd there in 2011. By way of closing the book on one networks conference and opening it on another, I would also like to pass on an announcement I was sent about an upcoming conference on network visualization. In October, Harvard will be hosting the Connecting the Dots symposium, which will feature keynote talks from Alessandro Vespignani and Ben Fry. The conference itself looks interesting, but there is also a very inclusive call for presenters:
In addition to the keynotes, we are soliciting proposals for guest speakers to give short 20-minute presentations. We are interested in any presentation that includes the visual depiction and/or visual analysis of network data as a central theme. Potential topics include but are not limited to network visualization algorithms, network visualization software, network communities and visualization, other network theory or analysis, and artistic projects centering on network visualization. Given the cross-disciplinary nature of network science, we welcome applications from researchers in any scientific discipline.
Seems like a great opportunity for anyone studying network and network representation. I expect to see my friends from Gephi there, and hope others will submit.
Photo: napolipuntoacapo.it
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