Influencers: Eva Schiffer on confusion
“I help to get you to the fruitful state of ‘confused but on a higher level.’”
-Eva Schiffer, Independent Network Scientist
Eva Schiffer is a social scientist who teaches very accessible but powerful principles of network analysis, as well as basic skill-sets to empower people to make changes in their community. To do this, Dr. Schiffer created the Net-Map toolbox:
“(When working for the International Food Policy Research Institute) I developed Net-Map as an answer to concrete local governance problems…Net-Map is an interview-based mapping tool that helps people understand, visualize, discuss, and improve situations in which many different actors influence outcomes”
Some of her projects include assisting communities in Northern Ghana develop strategy for governance and environmental preservation, and also works with groups who want to analyze the key influencers in their society.
“Determining linkages, levels of influence, and goals allows users to be more strategic about how they act in these complex situations. It helps users to answer questions such as: Do you need to strengthen the links to an influential potential supporter (high influence, same goals)? Do you have to be aware of an influential actor who doesn’t share your goals? Can increased networking help empower your dis-empowered beneficiaries?”
I encourage anyone interested in practical applications of the field to visit her site and learn more about the Net-Map toolbox, Dr. Schiffer’s methodology and organization.
“Confusion is the puzzled realization: ‘Maybe the world is completely different from how I thought it was. Maybe my organization works in ways, that I don’t even start to understand. Did I have it completely wrong?’ That’s a painful feeling. The more you like security, the longer you have believed one thing, the more painful this is.
Drawing network maps with groups is one way to do this, because most people have strong beliefs about how the social settings they work in are structured. You can feel the amount of agitation in a group rising when they realize that other people disagree and that they are basically not talking about hard facts but about perceptions. While arguing about individual links, everyone learns a lot of details about the actual flows within the network and that’s great. But I think for a lot of participants the change of perspective and the confusion that it leads to is the more productive power.”
