1. Chris McCarty University of Florida Gainesville, FL USA

2. Personal Network Research
Personal network – The set of family, friends and acquaintances (alters) surrounding a focal person (ego)
Individual attitudes and behaviors are a function of social influence
Personal networks are a way to operationalize social influence
Personal network composition and structural variables are used to predict outcomes

3. Personal Network Data Collection
Identify a population
Select a sample of respondents
Ask questions about respondent (ego)
Elicit network members (alters) from ego
Ask questions about each alter
Ask ego to evaluate ties between alters

4. Administrator program for creating a study
Client program for running a study

5. Personal network analysis
Personal network composition – summary of alter characteristics
Personal network structure – summary of pattern of alter relations

6. Aggregate data file from EgoNet

7. Fatou 22 year old second generation Gambian woman

8. Miriam 36 year old first generation Morrocan woman

9. EgoWeb
Uses dynamic visualization to keep respondent interested and involved
Visual interface for making alter-pair tie evaluations
Modified elicitation is designed to maximize betweenness and structural properties of personal networks