Chicago Muckety: Methodology

To determine the 100 most connected people in Chicago, we started with a list of 275 influential organizations, companies and agencies in the metro area.

We then researched the leadership and board membership of those entities, and the other affiliations of these people. The combined data enabled Muckety to determine the connectedness of each organization: How many affiliations did its leaders have to other Chicago organizations?

Measuring this connectedness factor, along with the rank each person had in each organization (chairman was given more weight than director, president more weight than trustee, etc.), we determined the connectedness of more than 2,000 influential Chicagoans.

That analysis, combined with interviews and other reporting, was used to narrow the final list to the 100 most networked.

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