Graphs

Social networks had been studied for nearly a century. John Scott, in Social Network Analysis; a Handbook(London: SAGE Publications, 2000,) pp. 7-33 gives a history of it. Sociologists knew that people operated in social contexts. Then someone thought up a graph to represent it. A graph is also called a sociogram.

From Wikipedia, the free, on-line encyclopedia:

In mathematics and computer science, a graph is the basic object of study in graph theory. Informally speaking, a graph is a set of objects called points, nodes, or vertices connected by links called lines or edges. In a proper graph, which is by default undirected, a line from point A to point B is considered to be the same thing as a line from point B to point A. In a digraph, short for directed graph, the two directions are counted as being distinct arcs or directed edges. Typically, a graph is depicted in diagrammatic form as a set of dots (for the points, vertices, or nodes), joined by curves (for the lines or edges).

Graphs are important to entrepreneurs because they offer a powerful tool for entrepreneurs to visualize their social networks. If you're a visual person, seeing something makes it a lot easier to remember. If you're interested in this, read the entire Wikipedia article and check out the Scott book. It give a terrific overview of social network analysis.

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