Keyhubs in the Corporation

Keyhubs can help identify organizational silos, key bridges and knowledge hubs between disparate or isolated working groups within companies.

Who do you go to for work related advice?




Following integration efforts between the two teams, the employees are surveyed again. The new, resulting Keyhubs map depicts the effectiveness of these efforts and visually highlights employee 26 as a central information hub within the organization. The hub size increases proportionate to the number of incoming connections. The blue lines depict mutual connections between individuals.




Keyhubs can quickly and easily help you visualize the social anatomy of your organization. Who are key social hubs? Are there social factions between groups that could be preventing important work from getting done? Or can these social networks be leveraged to build more effective working teams?

Who do you like to socialize with?




Below is the same group as above being asked who they go to for work related advice. The key knowledge hub in this company (employee 44) is someone relatively low in the hierarchy - a frequent oversight by managers.




Following is the informal network of two different groups within the same organization. The dynamics of how they share knowledge is quite different. This can provide insight about team performance and effectiveness.

Who do you go to for work related advice?




Keyhubs in the Classroom

Below is a network map which illustrates the social relationships for a Duke MBA class six months post graduation.

It has been 6 months since graduation. Who are you still in close contact with? Who do you consider a good friend?



There is a tight network between several nodes (1263, 1309, 1280, 1304, 1266, 1305), and it does not come as a big surprise that these individuals all hail from the same country in Europe. The Keyhub (1263) has forged strong connections with classmates from all continents (1323, 1298, 1300, etc.).

The 1304↔1271 and 1300↔1262 connections serve as “key-bridges” to a somewhat separate mutual network of friends. Without those “bridges”, everyone connected (directly or indirectly) to Keyhub 1271 and 1262 would be “severed” from the European dominated network.