Our initial priorities for sumApp were:
sumApp
It’s time for a paradigm shift – on so many levels!
If you’re supporting a network aimed at transforming systems, you need tools that are aligned and resonate with the conditions and principles that generate transformation.
You need adaptive tools, that allow for emergence, are dynamic and multi-dimensional.
Tools that help shift your network’s collective focus to interconnectedness, intersubjectivity, and complexity. Tools that enable you to generate the system-level insights you need to accelerate and amplify your collective impact.
Old-school social network analysis (SNA) tools are so. . . anti-emergent. And top-down-ish.
Doing an old-school SNA is like jumping off a cliff. It’s a big commitment and a big cost and once you jump, you can’t change your mind. You end up with a static snapshot of a moment in time – so you have to get that moment perfect from the start.
And then if you want to make a new snapshot at a future time, you have to make everyone start all over again and re-do everything they did the time before.
They're built on stable-system assumptions, using a product-development paradigm, when what you need is an emergent process, reflecting complex-system dynamics.
If you operate from closed-system/stable-system assumptions with logic models, SMART goals and predictability - AND if you have the top-down power to force everyone to participate, like in a dominant-culture organization, it kind of works.
But change networks function differently. And if your tools don't reflect that difference, they drag you backward and undermine the shift in everyone's thinking that's trying to emerge.
That old-school approach can be a hard sell with groups of people you can't control and who don't yet see the value in participating. Plus, that's just not how emergence, adaptive practices, and shared-learning processes work.
Old-school SNA maps also put the emphasis on analysis (which has its place, but is built on a process of separation and reduction. It re-inforces non-transformational thinking). They're designed by 'experts', to inform leaders about how to take advantage of and/or engineer the existing social structure.
They're not amenable to synthesis, transparency, fostering self-organizing, shared learning or adaptive action. And we think they should be.
We think that if you ask people to share data about themselves, they should have a choice whether or not to participate. They should be able to see - upfront - how it's going to be used, and the use of it should primarily be to bring value to the people sharing their data and to the network's goals as a whole.
Since SNA tools were first developed, visualization platforms (such as Kumu, Graph Commons and Polinode, as well as an abundance of coding libraries) have evolved in the direction we were wanting. They're accessible to everyone online, interactive, multi-dimensional, engaging, and they don't require that end users know math jargon or network science jargon to interact with the interface.
But gathering network data to present in those visualization platforms was still a big challenge. The kind of data we were looking for was data that isn't inferred from online behavior (i.e. following on Twitter doesn't tell us anything about your real-life relationship). Data that isn't extrapolated from commonalities (i.e. - just because we have a connection to 'writing', doesn't mean we have a connection to one another). Data that isn't based on the few relationships among others that you're personally aware of (because there's no way anyone can know personally about all the other significant relationships in a network). We wanted to be able to ask everyone in the network directly, to tell us about their own interpersonal/ inter-organizational relationships.
It wasn't hard conceptually - to do what we did.
But it was sort of hard technically - because our underlying principles are different from the normal assumptions of software development. Especially in the beginning - we were always going against the grain of what our developers thought we wanted.
There wasn't (and still isn't) another tool out there that enabled us to do what we wanted to do. There ARE other SNA tools, but none of them are built according to the principles that mattered to us.
And that's why we built sumApp. The data-gathering tool for a new paradigm, informed by and designed to align with new-paradigm principles.
Ryan Mottau
Katy Mamen
Ben Roberts
Laura Kaestele
Alex Abell
Lukas Posegga
sumApp finally allows us to digitize this intelligence and take our impact-driven weaving to the next level. So much of this potential may finally be unleashed. Thank you so much for creating this brilliant tool. I promise to use it for the good of the people and planet.
Lisa Negstad
Louise Clark
Your network will LOVE it!
It’s the easiest tool you’ll ever meet for getting your network members to map their own connections.
User Friendly
Structured Data
There is no other stand-alone survey platform that outputs RELATIONSHIP data in a way that conforms to a network graph structure. And re-structuring data is a headache.
While we were at it, we changed some things that had always annoyed us about other survey tools:
Evergreen
We also didn't think you should be stuck with re-doing a static snapshot in time over and over again. A network is dynamic, we felt the map representing it should be as well.
So most of our initial innovations were aimed at enabling you to make one map and just keep updating the map over time.
We call this approach 'Evergreen'.
Member Pictures & description
So we added a way for members to load a picture of themselves, and to input a brief description of themselves that shows up in the member list.
This way, even if people aren't sure about last names, or know someone by a nick-name, they can still be certain they've got the right person.
Each member has their own perpetual survey access
We thought - why not just leave their data in there, and simply have them go back in and update the info where things have changed?
So we made it more like a social media profile than a survey. Each member has their own unique sumApp link that they can use at any time to come back and update their profile and add new relationships as the changes occur.
Edit-able Survey and Connection Fields
With other survey tools, once you launch, it's too late for changes. But in sumApp you can edit at any time. Even while your data-gathering 'window' is open.
sumApp will even find and replace the language in the data you've already gathered, so that you never have to worry about having different versions of essentially the same questions. Your data stays clean and coherent while you learn and iterate.
Multiple member sort & filter options
In addition to a photo & a description, we give you different ways of sorting and even the ability to filter so your members can narrow the list down so they can just focus on the others they're most likely to know.
Email Template Versions
But if they've already filled in their profile/survey, they'll respond to the generic, initial invitation by thinking 'Been There, Did That!' - and either ignore the request or get annoyed at you for pestering them unnecessarily.
We realized that 'Evergreen' also meant helping to make it easier for people to understand what you're asking of them, and to understand that the whole process is not a 'once and done' thing.
So we made different email versions to reflect members varying prior experience within sumApp. If they're brand new, they get an initial (generally detailed & explanatory) invite. If they've been invited before, you can use simpler 'please come back' language. And if it's a generic nudge to everyone, you can use a simple reminder template.
But we didn't stop with easy and 'Evergreen'!
All along, we've learned from our own mapping experience, listened to the needs of our custom mapping clients, paid attention to our sumApp-using customers requests, and continued to develop the features the field has asked for.
Free
But we also recognize that not every network can afford to use a tool that has any cost whatsoever, and sometimes you have more time and willpower than cash to spend.
The relationship data is what's so challenging to structure, not the information about the individual persons or organizations. So the fundamental improvement sumApp makes in a mapping process is in easily gathering relationship information that is compatible with a network graph tool.
So - tbh - you CAN make a map in Kumu combining member data from another survey tool, and just get your RELATIONSHIP data from sumApp. It's more of a hassle & requires somewhat more data-savvy skills, and we think that $15/month is well worth the reduction in hassle.
But we also wanted to be as accessible as possible, while still having the hope of someday having a sustainable business. So we made the most crucial part of sumApp free - in Tier I. The survey doesn't exist in Tier I, nor do the additional features that exist in Tiers III & IV. But all fundamentals around connection data and everything that make it 'Evergreen' all apply.
Tier I
Live link into Kumu
Available in all tiers.
Time Tagging
Available in all tiers
Merge Duplicated Member Profiles
We got so sick of that problem that we created the 'merge' feature that enables you to combine the 2 versions into one, without losing any incoming or outgoing connections from either version. This saves a ton of time!
Available in all tiers.
Opt-In Form
Available in all tiers.
Member Data Preferences
Available in all tiers.
Multi-Modal Connection Options
Only available in Tiers III & IV.
Embed Kumu Map into sumApp
Available in all tiers.
Load data from external sources
Only available in Tiers III & IV.
Import connections from one project into another
sumApp tracks which connections were changed most recently and won't overwrite older connections onto newer ones. This reduces the ask for your big-hub members.
Available only in Tier IV.
Sorting and Filtering of member list
We've added multiple ways to sort and filter the members listed on the sumApp 'connections' page so that people can focus on finding the most likely connections.
Available in all Tiers.
Customize interface language to suit organizations
Only available in Tier IV.
Custom survey-based filter
Only available in Tier IV
Dual Elements
But if you want to have: one survey designed specifically for individuals; a different survey for organizations; connection questions for person-to-person relationships; different connection questions questions for organization-to-organization relationships; and still DIFFERENT connection questions for person-to-organization relationships (all of which actually make for more relevant and less confusing questions). . . NOW YOU CAN DO THAT!
By using what we call the 'Dual Elements' feature, you can connect two separate sumApp interfaces into one. You'll also get the third type of connection question (person-to organization) and your organizational representatives who are in BOTH projects will only have to deal with one link!
Available in Tier IV only.
Eventually we realized:
Something new and unexpected had emerged out of our focus on making an adaptive process easier – but not everyone recognized that fact.
We noticed that even though we had made a different kind of mapping process possible, most of our customers and clients were still trying to fit themselves into the old-school non-iterative approach.
The tools had changed in ways we thought increased the potential for transformation, but when people used the old Social Network Analysis language, they stimulated the same old not-quite-emergent process. So we decided to come up with new words for what we were doing. It needed a label that signaled:
- This is different
- It’s a process, not a product
- It’s about co-creation and shared learning, not about expert-driven analysis and recommendations
- It’s about enabling everyone to think systemically together, not extracting some metrics that help us social engineer things.
We call this newly-emerged approach to mapping: Social System Mapping
sumApp makes you a Social System mapping Rock Star!
Don't Fret Your Response Rate
But since sumApp is evergreen, you can start with the willing, make your map cool & inviting, share it with the community - and we assure you - once people have the end result to look at and play with, they WANT to be on that map, and sumApp makes that whole process simple.
Let your Survey Evolve
With sumApp you can always change, remove, or add more response options to your questions – and it’s not a huge ask to get people to update it. Because everything else they’ve told you remains in place. It’s not a whole new survey. So you’re not penalized for not knowing what you don’t know to ask upfront.
Kumu Won't Intimidate You Anymore!
You can get fancy with decorations, clusters, & custom filtering, but that’s just icing on the cake. We even provide instructions for all that fun stuff in our sumApp slack team.
Reduce the Update 'Ask'
People are only asked to revisit sumApp if their status changes (like a job title), when new members are added (which only requires sorting on 'recent' and checking out the new folks to see if they're known already), or update a connection as relationships get stronger. It just FEELS different.
Add New Members As They Join
Invite new members into sumApp as they join the network, and let everyone else know there are new members monthly or weekly. And if you're using the live link into Kumu, new members will show up on the map within minutes – it’s that easy!
Have No Fear of Spreadsheet Gremlins
This data-structuring part is the ONE thing that requires the learning of hard-core geeks – and we’ve got that handled for you. So you can relax & have fun with the rest of it.
You Won't Be Alone
We're in this together 🙂
All accounts start out as a 30 day free trial of Tier II.
Upgrade in 'My Account', or let it revert to Tier I at the end of the month.
No credit card needed to start trial.
Monthly
Annually
Up to 1,500 members/survey takers per project
Kumu-ready data structure
Graph Commons-ready data structure
Add Members with CSV Import
Multiple data output formats
(JSON, CSV)
Evergreen
Three kinds of email templates
Opt-in Form
In-App editing of fields
'Bio' & photo input
Merge profiles
Member connections panel
Member preferences
Connection options are customizable
Time Tagging
Embed Kumu map directly in sumApp members page
Everything in Tier I
AND
Optional custom survey
Everything in Tier II
AND
Multi-Modal Connections
Import Pre-Existing Data
Customizable CSS - Multiple Pre-Made Themes
Mailchimp api integration
Terms of Agreement
Everything in Tier III
AND
Dual Elements
Organization-friendly language
Custom survey-based filter
Email a sub-set of your population
Import connections from one project into another one
Up to 1,500 members/survey takers per project
Kumu-ready data structure
Graph Commons-ready data structure
Add Members with CSV Import
Multiple data output formats
(JSON, CSV)
Evergreen
Three kinds of email templates
Opt-in Form
In-App editing of fields
'Bio' & photo input
Merge profiles
Member connections panel
Member preferences
Connection options are customizable
Time Tagging
Embed Kumu map directly in sumApp members page
Everything in Tier I
AND
Optional custom survey
Everything in Tier II
AND
Multi-Modal Connections
Import Pre-Existing Data
Customizable CSS - Multiple Pre-Made Themes
Mailchimp api integration
Terms of Agreement
Everything in Tier III
AND
Dual Elements
Organization-friendly language
Custom survey-based filter
Email a sub-set of your population
Import connections from one project into another one