It may come as no surprise to you that given my current wall of 4,983 Facebook friends, I've made my bed in a forest of some close intimate friends, but a whackload of interesting colleagues and a plethora of loosely-knit acquaintances.
My Facebook (and in fact life) friend cluster wheel is quite scattered, far flung and looks decidedly like the visual on the right. Actresses, mechanics, creative directors, lawyers, admin. assistants, students and authors all inhabit my Facebook wall...and I'm thankful for the breadth.
Many people see my gaggle of friends, enquire, sometimes praise and sometimes question my friendship rules as appropriate social internet strategy for a "personal brand"? To each their own, a lot of it depends on personality. I'm naturally trusting, social and drawn to new people leading interesting lives or championing interesting ideas - thus, I have well above the average on what people might consider "weak ties" in my friend pool. Other people like Shel Israel have a much tighter friend wheel with a smaller aperture for weak ties.
So what are weak ties? Essentially, it's people that you have semi-periodic contact with and don't feel the same closeness, intimacy or proximity that you might feel with a strong tie (i.e. your closest 4 friends). If you use the Internet as you proxy, the average person has about 160 Facebook weak ties but in life, the number is more likely 500 to 1,500 depending on education, age, profession and personality.
The internet and more specifically social networks, have allowed us to stay in close touch with these weak ties to the point where some of these weak ties graduate into our strong tie circle based on frequency of online contact, even though we've never physically met.
If you read the research, it's to my future economic, employment, innovation and social benefit to maintain a large and strong network of weak ties. Referring to a recent post by Naumi Haque at Wiknomics entitled "Rich People have Fewer Friends", the absence of weak ties at the highest levels of organizations is prevalent and potentially a career limiter. It's the reason why we say "it's lonely at the top" or talk about the "corner office" with some level of silo-ness.
For those higher social strata people that want to stay connected, innovative, young and fresh, it's the reason they invest in clubs, social registers and some pricey "who's who" conferences. The ones that truly want to mine and connect with their weak ties join Linked In or Facebook and volunteer for community groups, charity organizations or causes. In my world, they are much more likely to be Influencers.
The landmark Granovetter study "The Strength of Weak Ties" referenced by Naumi, offers powerful statistical support for the importance of weak ties, particularly at the higher levels or economic, professional, social and community groups.
Although the study is little cobwebbed by 27 years of social progress (or regress pending your perspective), the study's conclusions are almost more prescient and valuable based on the social web of today. Simply, the average web citizen is more powerful by the number of weak tie connections they have - in this society, marketplace and economy, it's less about what you know than who you know.
So why so much importance placed on loosely linked friends? Isn't it rather the case that when you're in crisis you turn to your closest friends? Haven't we preached in churches, schools and in romantic Hollywood for time eternal that close friends are treasured and should be guarded against distraction?
While the importance of close friends, particularly in times of stress or crises can't be underestimated (in fact, the presence of weak ties at the lowest levels of economically stressed, social strata has minimal personal impact according to the Granovetter study), the relative greater importance of weak ties can be attributed to three benefits - time, ideas and access.
Time - stronger ties take much longer to form, they take more time to nurture and ironically, despite the time investment are much more likely to change over time. As a purely rational thinker, strong ties can be a time suck and inefficient use of the 118 hours of waking time you have each week. Whereas now, with RSS feeds, social media groups, apps and functionality, microblogging and friend feeds, weak ties are managed with considerable ease and tend to maintain themselves in position over time.
Ideas - since strong ties are all generally similar to each other and know one another's friends, they function as an "echo chamber" of ideas. Since you like somebody and get more familiar with somebody, you're more apt to accept their views initially or grow to accept them over time. Regrettably, when impacts or changes happen outside your strong tie group, you're less likely to be able to respond and change based on an acquired set of established ideas. The music industry, church groups and corporate head offices have all suffered from strong tie syndrome in a swift moving world.
Access - what's the number #1 way to find a new job when unemployed? Family? No. Close Friends? No. Mentors? No. Ironically, it's your weak tie network that time after time produces the results. Reasons -
a) there are more of them and so they can provide more avenues of opportunity and connection,
b) weak ties don't know each other as well and therefore will serve up a wider array of opportunities and
c) they have different perspectives and may see your talents and potential in a different way.
So if you want to hang out with Joey, Chandler, Ross, Phoebe, Monica and Rachel at the Central Perk, have a great time and adopt the wheel on the left.
But if you want to stay engaged, open to new ideas, fresh with new experiences, open up your social window, invite a few Fun Bobbies into your world and adopt some weak ties into your rolodex or Friend Wall.
Addendum - if you're a senior level business person, consultant, marketer, digiterati, entrepreneur, not-for-profit, media or communications person; work, live or happen to stroll by Toronto; have something interesting to say or contribute; and want to invest in some online and offline weak ties, drop me a line and we'll get you into our loose, but secret collective of idea starters, rainmakers and headline stealers - The League of Kickass Business Folk - Event #5 in July.
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