Introducing Personal Network Analytics

Years ago, when an increasing number of overloaded biopharma executives confessed they wanted to quit, I empathized. I’d burned out, too, and knew how they felt. All the work-life balance, time management, Seven Habits, fitness, and mindfulness hacks we used were necessary, but apparently, they were not sufficient. Was something missing?

I found an answer to that question in an unlikely place: a fashion magazine interview with Robert Downey, Jr. when he mentioned a “pit crew” of people supporting him. Curious about mine, I embarked on an ethnographic research adventure. First, I studied my own pit crew and used the data to improve my life. Then, I studied others,’ a story told in The NetworkSage: Realize Your Network Superpower. 

A New Way to Contribute to Research 

Insights professionals who read the book suggested my approach was a new lens to help them understand people’s lives, be more empathetic, and contribute to their research with HCPs, patients, and caregivers. Some suggested that a person’s network configuration was as important as other attributes. Others saw it as a way to enrich their understanding of personas. Patient Journey and other studies we’ve done since have proven them right.

A New Dataset and Framework for Analytics 

Robert Downey, Jr. identified four people in his “pit crew:” a yoga teacher, a sensei, a psychiatrist, and his wife. I identified 297 when I studied mine. Since then, in more than a decade of research with 1,000 children and adults, that list has grown to 7,000.

To improve the list's utility, I organized those 7,000 connection types into intuitive categories – not called “pit crews” because people rarely have that kind of support – but “networks.” Because this information architecture standardizes the connection nomenclature, it is helpful for case studies and other analytics. It also supports valid comparisons in the healthcare sector where I work across types of patients, caregivers, HCPs, disease conditions, and treatments, regardless of the nation or culture.

Why Connections? Why Networks?

Understanding connections well is not a trivial concern. Humans are hard-wired to connect, not just with friends, family, or romantic partners but with others, too. The quality of those connections impacts every aspect of life and contributes to the outcomes of any endeavor. This is especially true when people face any kind of vulnerability and must navigate the journey for themselves or their loved ones.

Good connections have benefits: less anxiety, less post-surgical pain, and better recovery following heart attacks. Bad connections, on the other hand, interfere with sleep, increase hypertension and stress hormones, predict depression, chronic illness, and shorter lifespan.

Can Connections Impact Drug Efficacy?

Important for biopharma, connections can impact every step in the disease journey – and perhaps even the outcome – in ways we’ve not considered. For example, if someone has a depressed friend, their risk of depression increases. It goes even higher if both friends are female. If only one is treated and the medication is ineffective, is that a therapeutic failure, or might a “network effect” interfere with efficacy? Though that’s a researchable question, to the best of my knowledge, we don’t know the answer because that’s a question we’ve not known to ask until recently.

Social vs Network Determinants of Health

Also important for healthcare and product commercialization, the network determinants of health are far more actionable than Social Determinants of Health. The health sector cannot move patients to a better zip code to improve their health or ensure they graduate from high school. It can, however, leverage our understanding of networks – and teach patients to do likewise – to achieve better outcomes, as our research has demonstrated.

The Network Information Architecture

Network Analytics starts with understanding the two major network types: Life Networks and Event Networks.

Life Networks are enduring; people join them and stay for a long time. Parents create five – birthright networks – to meet a child’s basic needs. Children change these networks as they grow, but nobody outgrows the need for what they provide.

• Family Networks: our family of origin, families we create as adults, former families from past relationships, and people “just like” family even though we are unrelated.
• Health and Vitality Networks: those who help us be healthy, fit, and look good.
• Education and Enrichment Networks: teachers and school staff who help prepare us for a job and those who provide enrichment experiences like the arts.
• Spiritual Networks: religious congregations and other groups who help us develop our sense of what is spiritual and meaningful.
• Social and Community Networks: neighbors, friends, community clubs or civic organizations, and social media contacts.

As we grow up, we progress through milestones considered markers of maturity: leaving home, finishing school, finding a mate, and becoming financially independent. As we do, we build three coming-of-age networks.

• Career Networks: bosses, direct reports, colleagues, and cross-functional or support teams and clients, customers,  investors, and government regulators.
• Home and Personal Affairs Networks: those who help protect, maintain, and improve our household and assets and provide legal and financial advice.
• Ghost Networks: those not currently in our lives because they have passed away, moved away, or drifted away as life changed. We gather ghosts since childhood and, as adults, begin to realize their impact. Damaging experiences create one type of ghost, and it’s not uncommon for patients to list  HCPs in that group, reporting that past encounters impact their journey years – and even decades – later. 

The other major type, Event Networks, is not enduring; it is episodic. These people help navigate an event, dispersing when we no longer need them. We expect some events: finding a job, having a wedding, buying a home, or moving to a new town. We don’t expect others, even when they are common: a house fire, an auto accident, storm damage, or a disease diagnosis.

When Life Networks are supportive, it is easier to navigate events because connections have useful information, referrals, helping hands, and listening ears. When Event Networks are supportive, it is easier to navigate the event successfully and avoid burning out those family, friends, and colleagues in our Life Networks.

Paradigm Shift

We have not been taught to think this way about our lives or had tools to help, so this is a paradigm shift. Luckily, with a structure and approach to make it possible, focusing on connections and networks is simple and can produce powerful new insights. We hear often that it “…takes a village…” to raise a child. In truth, we all need one.

Case studies show how understanding villages can generate new insights for healthcare and other sectors, and I’ll share those in the future. My insights colleagues were right. Those missing pieces matter. They add to our understanding of people’s lives and provide us with new insights to share with clients.