Relationship
Ego-network diagram
Shows a selected node, its neighbours and relevant connections among them.
- Diagram
- Relationship
- Local structure
What it answers
Who is connected to the selected entity?
- Shape
- Focus node with surrounding neighbours
- What it shows
- Immediate contacts and local bridges.
Example
The question
Who does our account manager Ana work with directly?
Ana’s direct contacts and how often they talk (ego network)
Illustrative data. It belongs to no company.
When to use it
Use it when
Local relationship investigation.
Avoid it when
When a local view is mistaken for the whole network.
How to read it
Start with the focus node, then inspect neighbours and their retained links.
Note
Define neighbourhood depth and retained links.
The data you need
- Layout
- Edge list plus node table
- Fields
- Source: text ID; Target: text ID; optional Weight: number
- One row is
- One relationship between two nodes. What is the grain?
- Rules
- Declare directed or undirected links. Handle duplicate edges and self-loops intentionally.
- Optional
- Separate Nodes table: NodeID,Label,Type. Include isolated nodes there.
- Preparation
- Resolve node identities and endpoint joins; define direction and duplicate/self-link handling. Aggregate weights only under a stated relationship or flow definition.
- Units
- Unweighted links encode presence. Weights need a unit; flow shares divide by stated source, destination or network totals, not an assumed common denominator.
Worked example
FocusA with edgesA-B, A-C, B-C shows two neighbours, also linked to each other.
| Source | Target |
|---|---|
| A | B |
| A | C |
| B | C |