Most of us have played the game '6 degrees of Kevin Bacon.' The fun of it is that somehow any actor is connected to Kevin Bacon within 6 steps. These connections may be direct: starring together in a film, or tenuous: the casting director of the actor's film worked on another film starring a third actor who played in a film with Kevin Bacon. You get the gist.
It seems silly, but this kind of thing happens in the life of regular people as well. For instance, it turns out that I am connected in multiple ways to the vice-principal of my girls' school. He used to be on the gymnastics team at the same gym that my one daughter competes for. But he took administrative education classes with my other daughter's volleyball coach. My brother knew his brother in school, and my father used to work with his mother. Small world, huh? And I'd never met him until last year. But this kind of thing happens all the time.
Think about all the different networks you inhabit: home, school, work, online. You may think of these as separate, at least in your life. But you are now the connection between these spheres. And in this way, the network get bigger and bigger. Your link may be very small, with not much power to affect others in your networks. But we know those who have a large influence: bloggers with a large readership, well-known leaders in a given field. How high-level influencers as well as ones that serve as a very simple connection hold together all types of networks is the subject of a really fun little book if you are into behavior and connection theory.
I read the book Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means for Business, Science and Everyday Life quite a few years ago. But I intend to give it another spin in the near future. Albert Laszlo-Barabasi does a great job of explaining how networks work, what makes them strong or fragile, and discusses the network and node concepts in many different contexts. Give it a read, and be sure to let me know what you think!
