"This entire stroke of luck hinged upon what sociologists call a weak tie. In a pre-social-network world, there’s almost zero chance that Emily would have been in regular contact with the wife of a friend from years ago. One’s social circles rarely include that sort of distant connection. It’s even less likely that a distant link would be exposed to your stray observations, like “Wow, there’s WiFi in this subway station.” In a world of status updates, tangential, seemingly minor ties become part of your social fabric. And they can bring in some extremely useful information. This entire stroke of luck hinged upon what sociologists call a weak tie. In a pre-social-network world, there’s almost zero chance that Emily would have been in regular contact with the wife of a friend from years ago. One’s social circles rarely include that sort of distant connection. It’s even less likely that a distant link would be exposed to your stray observations, like “Wow, there’s WiFi in this subway station.” Jobs that people heard about via personal contacts were best of all. But when people got these word-of-mouth jobs, they most often came via a weak tie."
Posted on: Mon, 23 Sep 2013 04:51:20 +0000