Social Capital, Six Degrees, and SNA

For this week I have read Clive Thompson on Real-World Social Networks vs. Facebook 'Friends' and Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg. These two interesting articles about social networking and how one individual can essentially run everything without holding a true position of power.

In Clive Thompson's article he notes that the person who holds the most power within a business may not be the most important one. How can that be though? If a manager isn't the most vital person to a company then who is? Reality Mining, a new field in tracking social networking development shows that the most vital person to a company is a random guy.

The random guy is the person that all the co-workers are familiar with, having built relationships based on face-to-face interactions. Information can be spread at a higher rate as people are allowed to operate using non-verbal gestures. Managers however, don't always have the time to get to know employees to the same extent as that random guy.

It makes sense to me that its not the managers who are the most vital, if you are a low-level employee and you need help, chances are you are going to go to that random guy who knows everyone and knows how to do the job. You're not going to go straight to the manager and risk getting your head chewed off for not knowing how to do your job.

In the article The Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg, it shows the importance of someone who is connected to multiple worlds. Weisberg is an easily identifiable figure among many social networks ranging from actors to "the flea-market aficionados." I found it interesting while reading this article how connected Weisberg is to so many people, she has the capability to reach people from all walks of life.

When relating these two articles together it is interesting to note that Weisberg is her own social network. Although she has held many upper-level positions in companies she is not the top person consistently yet always proves to be vital in connecting people together. I felt these two articles complimented each other perfectly. Ideas like reality mining and six degrees of separation can predict what we will be doing with our time and who we will spend it with. It will be interesting to see how businesses incorporate these ideas to motivate employees. Is it possible for more people to become like Lois Weisberg? Is Lois Weisberg type dying out as people move further away from face-to-face interaction?