Islands in the stream

The larger your network, the more powerful the network effects.

Stands to reason.

Social networks are broken in to islands of connectivity – each individual island has strong social connections within it.

But individual islands are generally loosely connected, or have, at best, only a few strong bonds to other islands of connectivity.

It’s how we get to the notion of “six degrees of separation.”

The more weak connections you have to as many other islands as possible, the greater the opportunity you have to either sell an opportunity to a tangentially related individual in another island of connectivity or have them sell an opportunity to you.

I am using the word “sell” to describe the exposure of an opportunity to an audience, e.g. a product or service that is available that others might want to buy, but also to “sell” the opportunity of a job opening.

The more connections you have, even if they are weak, the more reach you have, and inversely, the more reach someone else has.