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The Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg
Lois Weisberg knows everybody. A very long but fascinating article about networking and the brokers that connect disparate groups, focusing on one well connected woman in Chicago. Here's an excerpt:
"Stanley Milgram conducted an experiment in an effort to find an answer to what is known as the small-world problem, though it could also be called the Lois Weisberg problem. It is this: How are human beings connected? Do we belong to separate worlds, operating simultaneously but autonomously, so that the links between any two people, anywhere in the world, are few and distant? Or are we all bound up together in a grand, interlocking web? Milgram's idea was to test this question with a chain letter. For one experiment, he got the names of a hundred and sixty people, at random, who lived in Omaha, Nebraska, and he mailed each of them a packet. In the packet was the name and address of a stockbroker who worked in Boston and lived in Sharon, Massachusetts. Each person was instructed to write his name on a roster in the packet and send it on to a friend or acquaintance who he thought would get it closer to the stockbroker...
When Milgram analyzed his experiments, for example, he found that many of the chains reaching to Sharon followed the same asymmetrical pattern. Twenty-four packets reached the stockbroker at his home, in Sharon, and sixteen of those were given to him by the same person, a clothing merchant whom Milgram calls Mr. Jacobs. The rest of the packets were sent to the stockbroker at his office, and of those the majority came through just two men, whom Milgram calls Mr. Brown and Mr. Jones. In all, half of the responses that got to the stockbroker were delivered to him by these three people."
"Stanley Milgram conducted an experiment in an effort to find an answer to what is known as the small-world problem, though it could also be called the Lois Weisberg problem. It is this: How are human beings connected? Do we belong to separate worlds, operating simultaneously but autonomously, so that the links between any two people, anywhere in the world, are few and distant? Or are we all bound up together in a grand, interlocking web? Milgram's idea was to test this question with a chain letter. For one experiment, he got the names of a hundred and sixty people, at random, who lived in Omaha, Nebraska, and he mailed each of them a packet. In the packet was the name and address of a stockbroker who worked in Boston and lived in Sharon, Massachusetts. Each person was instructed to write his name on a roster in the packet and send it on to a friend or acquaintance who he thought would get it closer to the stockbroker...
When Milgram analyzed his experiments, for example, he found that many of the chains reaching to Sharon followed the same asymmetrical pattern. Twenty-four packets reached the stockbroker at his home, in Sharon, and sixteen of those were given to him by the same person, a clothing merchant whom Milgram calls Mr. Jacobs. The rest of the packets were sent to the stockbroker at his office, and of those the majority came through just two men, whom Milgram calls Mr. Brown and Mr. Jones. In all, half of the responses that got to the stockbroker were delivered to him by these three people."
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Keyword tags:
connectors
degrees of separation
networking
More Info: links to this page
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| Started By | Thread Subject | Replies | Last Post | ||
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| yiyi | Interesting! | 0 | Feb 7 2007, 3:21 PM EST by yiyi | ||
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Thread started: Feb 7 2007, 3:21 PM EST
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There are many social networking sites coming out these days, such as Friendster, myspace, facebook, lindkedin, and asmallworld. The internet and other communication tools let us easily build new connections and keep old ones like never before. Compared with the past when people weren't able to communicate so freely, and now people are related with more people than before. Could the technology and internet reduce six degrees to 5? One thing for sure, internet is redefining the way people socializing with one another.
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| ashleyselva | Great article! | 0 | Feb 5 2007, 12:38 AM EST by ashleyselva | ||
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Thread started: Feb 5 2007, 12:38 AM EST
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Very interesting article! Six degrees of separation is a commonly touted phrase, but this study seems to provide concrete evidence for the phenomenon. The notion of a “small world” is somewhat unfathomable. To think that in a seemingly vast world we’re all interconnected is surreal. Do you know if any empirical evidence has been published on this phenomenon?
Other interesting articles: Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon: Kevin Bacon embraces the idea that any actor can be connected through him by six degrees and launches a charity in response. Article about Kevin Bacon’s Charity http://www.eonline.com/news/article/index.jsp?uuid=d69b9df6-4f03-47ec-9533-e5f8580cc42c Kevin Bacon’s Charity http://www.sixdegrees.org/Default.aspx |
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