Here's a great example of a tool that helps us visualize relationships in social networks. The brainchild is a company called introNetworks. I came across them through my affiliation with ASTD. I took the liberty of placing a short little screencast below (with a bigger view here) to demo the functionality on ASTD's site.
Although, as I say in the s'cast, the practical applications are bigger than the implementation ASTD opted for. For example, I can imagine a product or service organization that visually connects the needs of customers with a catalog of the company's products, solutions and services. Or, how about social networks where I, as a member, can visualize "pins" (that's how other user profiles are represented in the application) of others in the network who have solutions or capabilities to match the needs I've identified in my own profile.
