Sociomapping
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Sociomapping is method for data analysis and visualization. It uses the data-landscape metaphor, creating a visually coded picture resembling a map that can be interpreted with similar rules as navigation in the landscape. This picture is called a Sociomap.
There are two types of Sociomaps - WIND and STORM.
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[edit] WIND Sociomaps
WIND (stands for Weighted INverse Distance method) is a type of the Sociomap used for team analysis. Objects on the map are in most cases people from a team. Based on collected data, the distance between people can be intensity of communication (the closer they are, the more they communicate), or attitudes (liking, respect), or any other relational measure. The height can be an arbitrary variable (in most cases some performance indicator), such average quality of communication, volume of contracts, average importance to other members in the team, and so on.
Social network data can also be visualized with a Sociomap.
[edit] STORM Sociomaps
These types of Sociomaps are used in political and marketing research (STORM stands for Subject To Object Relation Mapping). Data used for these types of maps are rectangular matrices, where each respondent rates preference of selected objects, such as political parties, brands, products, and so on. In order to create a Sociomap, for each object a position in the map is calculated, and all respondents (becoming a kind of granule) are placed on the map according to their preferences - the distances of the granule to objects is proportional to respondent's preferences of the objects. On the places in the map where more respondents gather, hills start to form, so the final Sociomap depicts typical configurations of preferences by hills formed under or between the objects (in this sense a STORM Sociomap is a data mining approach based on visual pattern recognition). In the following step, undecided voters or customers (the hills between the objects) can be visualized and analyzed. This type of analysis therefore enables to visualize preferences and target specific groups of respondents with similar preferences or attitudes.
