A big part of my time with UN Global Pulse was devoted to building comprehensive representations of social networks, media channels, and internal communication flows to analyze the effectiveness of campaigns and how the U.N. could leverage key stakeholders to communicate critical information. As a data professional a big part of my job is not only in written display of information but also using visuals to improve comprehension and learning related to such large and intensive datasets and concepts.

Unfortunately, I cannot share exactly what was discovered, or the players involved as it is protected information. However, I would like to showcase some of the beautiful network visualizations which became important products of this long term collaborative effort. I believe they can be appreciated aesthetically on their own.

They were produced using D3.js, Python, and Gephi.

Below is the full project outline:

Project Description

UN Global Pulse worked together with the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) on a project that analyzed social network data to understand the effectiveness of OIOS campaigns on social media and whether they could be improved. The research investigated three instances related to posts by OIOS on social media: framing, messaging, and online engagement.  

The advent of digital technologies and the spread of social media afford myriad new opportunities for organizations to engage audiences all over the world, but these developments have also increased the pressure to produce ever better, newer, and more visually appealing content. Data analysis and data visualization can help organizations gauge how to engage with their key constituents more effectively. 

UN Global Pulse used historical Twitter data—obtained thanks to its data-sharing agreement with the social media giant—to analyse and then to visualise information from two accounts and a number of hashtags that the OIOS team outlined in their communications strategy.

The research analysed aggregated data for multiple languages and geographies to answer the following questions:

• How do OIOS accounts engage with and distribute development-related conversations?
• What is the relationship between OIOS accounts and different stakeholder audiences (government agencies and international entities)?
• What is the effectiveness of OIOS campaigns over time?

The results were used by the UN Office of Internal Oversight to issue recommendations and solutions for achieving more proactive and productive engagement strategies.

The lessons learned from this project show the potential for recreating similar studies to understand online engagement with UN entities and campaigns in order to expand advocacy efforts across the spectrum of the SDGs .

Graph Gallery