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April 05, 2003

Gladwell and Social Networks

I saw Malcolm Gladwell speak at UT the other night. From what I could gather, UT assigns all freshmen one book each year to read as part of an intro to writing class, then plans a couple of events and discussions around it, ending with a talk on campus by the author; this year it was "The Tipping Point." Next year's book is one I can recommend highly: Eric Schlosser's gripping and life-changing "Fast Food Nation."

Gladwell spoke about "the tipping point" concept in general, and specifically about what he calls "Social Power", really just his version of some current ideas about social networks. He never mentioned online groups, but touched on many of the ideas about reputation, trust, and group-forming that the "social software" people are interested in. Much of this will be obvious to people more engaged in the recent social-software conversations, but here are my thoughts:

He called the highly-connected nodes in social groups "connectors." The best example I know is Molly Steenson, who seems to know everyone everywhere, and described to me in an email how she brings people into conversations the way she might add some spice to a recipie: "this conversation needs some cumin, let's go get Adam involved." These "connectors" move in several social worlds, while most of us might move in just 3 or 4. In other words, they don't just know people at work, on their softball team, and through family. They'll have lots of connections to old school friends, volunteer groups, or what have you. Gladwell thinks that connectors have a sort of "bottom-up" power to affect change within the social worlds they move in (see his article Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg).

Gladwell also identified what he called "mavens" (although I think he's borrowing that term as well): people who are well-connected because they have a specific expertise that everyone draws from. Your cousin who knows everything about cars, for example, or your friend who always knows the currently hip restaurant. These people have a hugely influential place in social networks, because everyone relies on their information and opinions. They have good reputations, they're trustworthy, and they basically control the opinions of large number of people.

Connectors and mavens both have strong links to others. They're really overlaid in any given network. Here's an oversimplified diagram I made. Notice that connectors (red) really do the work of bridging networks. Mavens (blue) spread ideas and opinions largely within an existing social network, but not exclusively in it. They don't really work at maintaining links, but aren't adverse to sharing their knowledge. For example, I might have a short email conversation with someone whom I don't really know about cooking, or painting, or some topic she's an expert on.

Connectors and Mavens


One of the key insights about networks and an undercurrent of Gladwell's talk is that weak links are the key to successful networks. It's not just the strong links, but the weak ones-like that "friend of a friend" that sent you that great job lead-that extend and reinforce social networks and which often provide value to those in them. These weak links are largely outside your ability to make or maintain; you probably aren't close to some of your friends' friends, otherwise they'd be your friends. Still, it's to your benefit to recognize and take advantage of weak links in your social network. A weak link might give you useful information, or introduce you to a potential partner or employer you'd otherwise have no access to.

I want software to help me manage this stuff. It could:

Here's some scenarios: I've just read an article that my pal Bill might be interested in (although I don't remember that). Program X tells me, "hey, Bill seems to be interested in this topic based on his profile, and you haven't contacted him in six weeks." I have an easy way to maintain a weak link in my network.

Or, say I'm planning a trip to the Canadian Rockies, where I've never been before. No one I know can recommend places to stay or things to do, but Program Y can tell me that my friend Paul (a connector) can connect me to Amy, a maven who's given out information about the Canadian Rockies before.

It occurs to me that weblogs are really fine tools for both making and managing certain weak social links. Weblogs encourage an easy and reasonably standardized bits of currency for twanging the strings of weak network connections. Obviously, link-making and the value of a hyperlink existed before weblogs, but tools like Trackback, easy commenting, and ideas like the "more like this from other sites" plug-in for MoveableType make it easier to discover and reinforce weak links. For example, take my relationship to IA-guru Lou Rosenfeld. I don't really know Lou, although I think he's a very smart guy. We're interested in the same kind of stuff, and we've exchanged one or two emails, but we're certainly not regular correspondents. In the larger social network, Lou is weakly linked to me.

If I link to something Lou's written, I give him a couple of things of minor value: I help his popularity ranking on Google with my link, and I add to his potential visibility and credibility by suggesting to my readers that they follow that link to his site; he might be worth their time and attention. Since Lou's already a more-connected node on the network than I am, in Buchanan's terms, I'm helping the rich get richer, another property of small-worlds networks. Academic writing, with its highly formalized system of attribution and citation, are another example of weak-link making and maintenance. (Of course, my link might not be as valuable to Lou as a link from, say, Jakob Nielsen might be. It's at least valuable in a different way.)

Er...that's it. No great insights, mostly articulating some notes to myself. Sorry for the lack of payoff here. Perhaps something more will come to me. :-7

Update: given the number of more thoughtful postings than this one on this topic recently, I should just shaddap.

Posted by Andrew at April 5, 2003 11:01 AM

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Comments

nah... don't shaddap. Or at least don't stop doing diagrams as darn purdy as that one. More!

Posted by: Matt at April 8, 2003 04:18 AM

I'm constantly thinking about how others have framed a subject I'm posting about- and it used to make me want to go delete something I wrote and point to something I thought was better.

Then I said screw that- my perspective is my perspective and who am I to decide what my readers want?

Now I'm starting to feel like no matter how eloquently a subject has been written about by others, I still have a duty to my readers to write about it on from my perspective. So goes the thoughts of a still-pretty-newbie blogger...

I love the Tipping Point- great book and I agree about the connection to social software.

Posted by: Lee at August 13, 2003 02:35 PM