About: Idea networking

Idea networking is a qualitative method of doing a cluster analysis of any collection of statements, developed by Mike Metcalfe at the University of South Australia. Networking lists of statements acts to reduce them into a handful of clusters or categories. The statements might be source from interviews, text, websites, focus groups, SWOT analysis or community consultation. Idea networking is inductive as it does not assume any prior classification system to cluster the statements. Rather keywords or issues in the statements are individually linked (paired). These links can then be entered into network software to be displayed as a network with clusters. When named, these clusters provide emergent categories, meta themes, frames or concepts which represent, structure or sense-make the col