Excerpt from Leadership Without Borders, available March 2007, a new Jossey-Bass, John Wiley and Sons book by Ed Cohen.
The other day someone invited me to join her linkedin network at Linkedin.com.* Normally I ignore these messages, but a while back someone who I explicitly trusted told me that Linkedin is actually a great way to substantially expand your network. It works on the “degrees of separation premise”. I found it very user friendly and respectful of my privacy. In order for someone to invite me to join their network, they have to know my email address, or be introduced to me by someone else in my network. On November 1, I had 76 connections in my network. My connections had connections that added to more than 3200 connections (2nd level of separation). And, their connections (3rd level of separation) had more than 402,400 connections. Amazing, through my connections, I can meet more than 3200 people and through my connections, connections (3rd level of separation), I have access to more than 400,000 people across the globe. I decided to see how quickly I could expand my network, so I went online and started asking others, I know and trust, if they would like to join my network or introduce me to their contacts to join my network. I followed three simple rules. First, only ask those I know to join my network. Second, only ask one of my trusted connections to introduce me to one of their trusted connections if there is value in knowing that person. Third, I did not want to incur any costs to expand my network.
Here was the status of my LinkedIn.com connections just four days later on November 5th: You are at the centre of your network. Your connections can introduce you to 1,420,300+ professionals – here’s how your network breaks down:
- Your Connections Your trusted friends and colleagues: 105
- Two degrees away Friends of friends; each connected to one of your connections: 36,000+
- Three degrees away Reach these users through a friend and one of their friends: 1,384,100+
- Total users you can contact through an Introduction: 1,420,300+
Along the way, I reconnected with people with whom I had attended university, people with whom I had worked throughout my career and with many new people. If you were to collect business cards from every one of these contacts, and stack them it would measure more than high 550 meters (1,800 feet). The stack would be taller than the tallest building in the world, Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The entire experience has been amazing.
Just 20 days later, on November 24th, I went back out to Linked in and my network had almost doubled again. The chart indicating the size of my network of trusted professionals now read, “You are at the center of your network. Your connections can introduce you to 2,165,500+ professionals.”
* Source: LinkedIn.com- LinkedIn is an online network of more than 8 million experienced professionals from around the world, representing 130 industries.
