The other day, I was discussing social network mapping theory with Valdis Krebs and the amazing things one could learn from the networks of executives to inform recruitment and retention. During the conversation, Valdis casually mentioned something that detonated in my mind in the hours and days immediately following our discussion: the six degrees of separation thing is, essentially, a myth.
The six degrees theory emerged, according to wikipedia, as follows:
The small world experiment comprised several experiments conducted by Stanley Milgram examining the average path length for social networks of people in the United States. The research was groundbreaking in that it revealed that human society is a small world type network characterized by shorter-than-expected path lengths. The experiments are often associated with the term six degrees of separation, although Milgram did not use this term himself.
It may not be a small, small world afterall . . .That may explain why Jobster - the social networking meets job referral site - has had so much trouble catching on. Basically, as Valdis explained it, with luck one's direct connections (to the second degree) might be willing to make a referral, but with every degree beyond that, the likelihood of a subsequent referral becomes exponentially smaller. In the end, only a small percentage of a social network actually makes referrals to the sixth degree. In other words, most referrals reaching beyond one's immediate connections go nowhere.
So, if the myth argument wins out, then online social neworks are not the silver bullet they've been made up to be . . .at least when it comes to referrals. The lesson for executive search? Do not depend on online social networks for referrals and introductions. At The Good Search, we've always found it to be far more effective to simply pick up the phone.
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