Tutorial The Carlos Slim network

In this tutorial, we will use Detective.io to visualize the network around Carlos Slim’s family. Carlos Slim is an oligarch based in Mexico, whose tentacles extend to many facets of the Mexican society.

Sign up or log in

The first step is to login or create an account. To create an account, go to detective.io/signup. You will need a valid email address. Detective.io will send you an activation link. Click on it to validate your account. You can then login at detective.io/login.

Create a data collection

You are now on your Dashboard, where you can start a new data collection. Click on “Create new data collection”.

Choose a data structure template

At this step, we will choose the structure of the data collection. In this example, we will investigate Carlos Slim’s family and businesses. The template that includes these data models is Corporate Networks. Click “Customize” when you’re done.

Customize the data structure

This step lets you see and customize your data structure. You see on the left panel what your data structure looks like. You can also modify the data structure. In this case, we will add “Non-profit Organizations” to the data structure, because Carlos Slim uses them to extend his influence. To do so, click on “Add a new data model” on the right hand side. Type in “Non-Profit” as the name. The first property of this data model is the name, because all of the items “Non-Profit” must have a name (e.g “Carlos Slim Health Institute”). Add the other properties you will need for your investigation, such as “address”. For each new property, you need a data type. “Short text” is the default option. Add also the date the Non-Profit was established as “date founded”. Here, change the data type to “date”. When you’re done, click “Save”. You now need to add the relationships between the Non-Profits and the other data model. We’ll start by adding a relationship for people who are on the board of an Non-Profit. Click “Add new relationship”. Indicate what are the two data models linked by the new relationship. In this case, it will be “Person” and “Non-Profit”. Give a name to your relationship. Here, the name will be “Sits on the board”, because the relationship is from a Person to a Non-Profit. Think of it as the sentence “a Person Sits on the board of a Non-Profit ”. The reverse relationship is the name for the relationship that goes in the opposite direction, from a Non-Profit to a Person. Let’s call it “Directors”. Relationships can also have properties, called fields . Let’s add “from” and “to” as the properties of this relationship, in order to indicate the dates when a person started to sit on the board of a Non-Profit and the date she resigned. Click “Save” when you’re done. Let’s add a a new data model to our data structure before we get started, real estate. And a few more relationships:

• Person owns Real Estate
• Company owns Real Estate
• Non-Proft owns Real Estate
• Person involved in Real Estate (with property “type of involvment”)
• Company involved in Real Estate (with property “type of involvment”)
• Non-Profit owns Non-Profit

Once you’re done, click “Describe”.

Don't worry too much about your data structure though, you can always change it later.

Give a name to your data collection

You can now name your data collection and give it a cover picture. The cover picture must be hosted online already. In this case, we can take a picture from Wikipedia at this address. You can also decide to make your data collection private. When you’re done, click “Create the data collection”.

Add data

You’re now all set to add data. Click “Add items”. We’ll start by adding Carlos Slim himself, so we choose “Person”. You can add information about him in the field “Comment” or “Bio”. Each time you add a bit of information, make sure to indicate the source using the “Add sources” button to the right. You can also add relationships with other people. Go down to “Is parent of” and add two of his sons, Patrick and Marco Antonio. You see that it automatically creates the files for Patrick and Marco Antonio below. For each of the three, you can add a relationship with Grupo Carso, Slim’s main holding. Under “Is a Director of”, you can create “Grupo Carso”.

See the network

Once you have added information, you can click on “See in details” to go to the front-end of your data collection. Click on “Network” to visualize the network.

Invite co-workers

Adding data takes time. That’s why it’s easier to work as a team. To invite people, go back to your Dashboard by clicking on the menu on the left hand side. Click on Collaborators. You can here invite people by adding their email addresses or their usernames. Once you have added a user, you can make it Admin, so that she can invite other users, or simply Contributor.

Investigate

You’re now all set to aggregate all the information you can find and explore the influence network you build! See it here. You have more features to explore, such as importing CSV files, using the graph search engine or embedding the network visualizations. Stay tuned for the next tutorials!