Large groups of people can drastically change their opinion, adopt a completely unexpected trend, come out to protest on a square, adopt a certain ideology, have an amazing time at a party, or start using a certain product on mass scale. While all these social phenomena are diverse, one thing in common is that they involve information dissemination that happens in a synchronized way, evoking a certain response from the population at once.

In this workshop I will demonstrate how epidemic theories from network science can be used to study information contagion and trend/rumor propagation (so-called information cascades). We will use real examples from Facebook and Twitter, as well as Gephi software to visualise the sample data.

You will learn what groups to target when planning effective marketing campaigns, how promote your news to the top of the feed on Facebook, generate and seed trends in social networks. You will also find out how information becomes viral and what one can do in order to increase the message’s contagious potential.

The workshop will be held in English and German.

To sign up: workshopinformationepidemics-eorg.eventbrite.com

Date: 16th of February, from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM
Place: betahaus, 19-20 Prinzessinnenstr (U8: Moritzplatz), 4th floor Arena hall

In this workshop we will demonstrate a novel method for text network analysis using Gephi graph visualization software. Unlike other topic modelling methods (latent semantic network analysis, LDA) our approach takes into account the structural properties of text network in order to identify the clusters for meaning circulation and the most influential concepts within the text. You will learn how to create graph network representations of texts and perform their comparative quantitive and qualitative analysis. The method can be especially useful for quick text summarization and group sentiment profiling.

What It Can Be Used For:

– Identifying the most influential concepts and topics within a text.
– Comparing different texts together, especially what strategy a text uses to “push” a certain agenda.
– Group sentiment analysis: find the terms that unite any group together
– Quick text summary and overview (can be especially useful for studying or law text)

If you’d like to participate you can send us a short text (200 to 300 words) to info at noduslabs dot com describing your interests and current occupations. We will create text graphs both for participants and the whole group and see how they relate to one another (see the image attached). This may also be useful for you to meet other like-minded individuals at betahaus or find the people who could complement your cognitive map with their knowledge.

To sign up: workshopnoduslabs1.eventbrite.com

We highly recommend you to bring your laptop with you and pre-install Gephi graph visualization software on your computer (works on Mac, PC, Linux).

This is an announcement for the first Gephi Plugins Developers Workshop October 6, 2011 in Mountain View, California. Come and learn how to write your first Gephi plugin and ask questions. The workshop is organized by Mathieu Bastian, Gephi Architect and will be gratefully hosted by IMVU.

Gephi is a modular software and can be extended with plug-ins. Plug-ins can add new features like layout, filters, metrics, data sources, etc. or modify existing features. Gephi is written in Java so anything that can be used in Java can be packaged as a Gephi plug-in! Visit the Plugins Portal on the wiki and follow the tutorials to get started.

The workshop will start with a presentation of Gephi’s architecture and the different types of plugins that can be written with examples. Details about Gephi’s APIs, code examples and best practices will be presented in an interactive “live coding” way. The Gephi Toolkit will also be covered in details. The second part of the workshop will be dedicated to help individuals with their projects and answer questions.

Some of the best projects using or extending Gephi are developed in the Silicon Valley and we are looking forward helping the developer community. Please don’t hesitate to send us your ideas to maximize efficiency.

RSVP here

As a part of this festival Nodus Labs will do a workshop on social network analysis starting at 13.30, finishing at 14.30 (reserve your space on people in beta festival website).

Also, betahaus cafe will be a space where everyone can host their own session, so right after the workshop, at 14.30, we’ll host the second Gephi meetup in Berlin downstairs at one of the open tables. Together with the other guests we’ll talk about the different ways we use Gephi and Dmitry from Nodus Labs will show some practical applications of Gephi for text network analysis and social network analysis.

You are welcome to come and join in!

You can read a report on the previous meet-up on the blog of Nodus Labs.

Dmitry Paranyushkin is a professional amateur who’s had numerous affairs in the fields of arts, music, intersubjective relations, network research and internet business. He’s the founder of ThisIsLike.Com – an online mnenomic network and Nodus Labs – an exploratorium of ideas in the fields of network analysis. Having fled Russia for undefined reasons in 1976 he’s found a temporary refuge in Berlin where he lives in a castle on Spree river and occasionally visits betahaus to steal rocket-fast broadband frequencies.

The first event is planned for Wednesday September 28, 20.00 to 22.00 (free access) in Aux 2 Academies, 15 Rue Bonaparte, Paris Au Père Tranquille, 16 rue Pierre Lescot, Paris (map).

Gephi can be used in many domains and with different types of data. Whether you are a scientist, a student, an artist, a developer or a simple enthusiast, you are welcome to join the community and show up at our meetup. It’s a great opportunity to ask questions, discuss data, plugins, code, metrics or visualization.

The meetup will be organized by Sébastien Heymann, Gephi co-founder. To register, sign-in on meetup.com and RSVP for the event.

The first event is planned for Thursday September 8, 17.30 to 19.30 (free access) in betahaus, 4th floor (Arena), Prinzessinnenstr 19-20, 10999, Berlin (map).

In this workshop conducted by Dmitry Paranyushkin from Nodus Labs hosted at Berlin’s most important co-working hub betahaus, we will demonstrate how one can visualize and analyze a social network or a community (using an example from Facebook selected by the participants). We will find out how to identify the most influential nodes within a network, various subgroups within a community, and the most efficient communication strategies to spread information within a group.

We will also discuss what behavior within the network fosters stronger ties between the members and a more sustainable community.

This event will also be first event of the Gephi Meetup Group in Berlin and we can move to betahaus cafe after to discuss further questions after the workshop.

Dmitry Paranyushkin is a professional amateur who’s had numerous affairs in the fields of arts, music, intersubjective relations, network research and internet business. He’s the founder of ThisIsLike.Com – an online mnenomic network and Nodus Labs – an exploratorium of ideas in the fields of network analysis. Having fled Russia for undefined reasons in 1976 he’s found a temporary refuge in Berlin where he lives in a castle on Spree river and occasionally visits betahaus to steal rocket-fast broadband frequencies.

Join us for data in sight: making the transparent visual, a hands-on data visualization competition held June 25th and 26th, 2011, at the Adobe Systems, Inc. offices in San Francisco’s SoMa District. Open to coders, programmers, developers, designers, scientists, members of the media—anyone who believes that data is divine and has ideas for bringing it to life.

During the hackaton, Mathieu will help teams to code Gephi plug-ins or mashups. Ideas go from live data streaming to layouts, filters or web widgets. If you have ideas, please come to the forum to open a discussion.

Visit the website to learn more about the schedule, data available and advisory committee.

We are very excited to announce that the Gephi Team has a tutorial session at both UKSNA and ICWSM conferences this summer!

UKSNA will be located at the University of Greenwich, London. The Gephi Short Course is on Wednesday, 6 July (2:30 – 6:30PM).
The UK Social Networks Conference offers an interdisciplinary venue for social and behavioral scientists, sociologists, educationalists, political scientists, mathematicians, computer scientists, physicists, practitioners and others to present their work in the area of social networks. The primary objective of the conference is to facilitate interactions between the many different disciplines interested in network analysis.
website | registration | Facebook event

ICWSM Tutorial Day will be held July 17, 2011 (1:00 – 4:00 PM) in Barcelona, Spain.
The International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media is a unique forum that brings together researchers from the disciplines in computer science, linguistics, communication, and the social sciences. The broad goal of ICWSM is to increase understanding of social media in all its incarnations.
website | registration | Facebook event

Registration to these events is still open! The tutorial at ICWSM costs $150 ($100 for students). The tutorial at UKSNA costs £100 (£50 for students).

Program:

In these tutorials, Sébastien Heymann and Julian Bilcke will provide a hands-on demonstration of the essential functionalities of Gephi, based on a real case scenario. The participants will be guided step by step through the complete chain of representation, manipulation, layout, analysis and aesthetics refinements. Particular focus will be put on filters and metrics for the creation of their first visualizations. They will be incited to compare the hypotheses suggested by their own explorations. They finally will walk away with the practical knowledge enabling them to use Gephi for their own projects. The tutorial is intended for professionals, researchers and graduates who wish to learn how playing during a network exploration can speed up their studies.

Requirements:

Participants should come with their own laptop (and a mouse!) with Gephi installed. After the guided introduction, they will have time to work on a dataset of their own and receive help and direct feedback from the teaching team.

It is also a great opportunity to meet researchers and practitioners interested in network visualization, looking forward speaking with you all there!

The first event is planned for Thursday May 12 in San Francisco. The ambiance will be informal and relaxed, to facilitate contacts and discussions.

Gephi can be used in many domains and with different types of data. Whether you are a scientist, a student, an artist, a developer or a simple enthusiast, you are welcome to join the community and show up at our meetup. It’s a great opportunity to ask questions, discuss data, plugins, code, metrics or visualization.

The meetup will be organized by Mathieu Bastian, Gephi co-founder. To register, sign-in on meetup.com and RSVP for the event.