The six degrees of separation

Web Nebula or cloud 2004

Is a theory that states that every person in the world is somehow connected to each other. In detail it refers to the idea that every person is at six steps away separated to each person on earth. Therefore you need at least 5 persons to complete the sequence.

The oldest writes about the human interconnections in probably the Bible, stating that somehow every human being is connected to each other like brothers and sisters of the same family.

Back in 1929, the Hungarian author, Frigyes Karinthy wrote some volumes about networks and human connections. He came up with the idea of a smaller world due to its connectivity between human beings.

Later in the Sixties, other tried to prove that every human being is connected to each other indirectly, called the small world experiment. All thou early attempts have been made Milligram’s was worth to be mentioned.

Milgram’s study results showed that people in the United States seemed to be connected by approximately three friendship links, on average, without speculating on global linkages; he never actually used the phrase “six degrees of separation”. Since the Psychology Today article gave the experiments wide publicity, Milgram and earlier researches all had been incorrectly attributed as the origin of the notion of “six degrees”; the most likely popularized of the phrase “six degrees of separation” is John Guare, who attributed the value “six” to Marconi ( the radio inventor).

DIGITAL ERA

In 2001, Duncan Watts , a professor at Columbia University, recreated Milgram’s experiment by sending an email called “the package” that needed to be delivered around the world. Duncan came to the average of 6 as the number of intermediates.

In 2007 another test has been performed on Microsoft Messenger analyzing more than 240 millions people conversations. Here the average has been found of 6.6 (recalling it the 7 degree  of separation).

The actor Kevin Bacon has invented a game based on this theory: “Six degrees of Kevin Bacon” The concept is to link any actor to Kevin through six connections. Because Kevin has state that he has played with every actor in the history of Hollywood directly or indirectly !

Hollywood actor Kevin Bacon

Today with the power behind online social networks, we can assist for the first time in history the interconnection between human beings. All thou we know that a great piece of the planet does not have access to internet and not every one chooses the same social network to register to, we can have an idea of the power of interconnections.

Facebook, Myspace, Bebo and Netlog are the biggest examples of human interconnections.  All social networks have combined together more than 500 million people registered ! These Social networking platforms shows the behaviour of human people towards common goals or interests. Both Facebook and Myspace communities with common interests and groups, working together to achieves specific goals, whether we are speaking about music, charity or business !

Linkedin provides you to see till the third degree of separation. I myself am connected on the first degree to 1,500 people around the world, but on the third degree am connected with more than 12 million !

Network statistics on Linkedin

Do you want to build your social network?

Thinking of building a social network

When we see the huge success behind several social networking sites, we cannot hide behind our desire to create one of our own, telling that its a goldmine to be explored.  The truth is, it is not so easy. Facebook has its success, due to its unique way to present its applications to its users. Linkedin has its success because it is the first  site to mix your profile and your career path in order for you to promote  yourself and your business to the world. Myspace is a place where you can upload music, videos, get to know people with the same passion as you.

Every social network has its own way to contact its users.   SO, if you want to create a social network platform you need to create something Unique, not like facebook or myspace or netlog. Creating an original general site is the only way to distinguish from the others. You don’t need to register to another social network if all of your friends are already on facebook, if the answer is yes, I will register, how many of my friends will follow me?

But if you create something completely different, than maybe it will grow.

Another problem is technology, unless you are a programmer yourself and you have time, you can program the site with all its complexity. The technology behind web 2.0 is more complex than just creating a website with html or css language, add with some flash or javascipts. NO, interactive web needs a platform with more memory than you ever could imagine. PHP, CSS, RSS, XHTML, wiki, JAVA are few of those web 1.0 and web 2.0 languages you can use in order to create your social network site.

I have interviewed many of the founders of social communities sites and the major problem is to keep on with the sustainability of the site. It means that you need to keep buying servers in order to keep up with the growing number of profiles, sometimes without receiving any money from advertisement . Wikipedia for example, since it is a not profit organization receives donations from its users and developers ! mass collaboration !

Facebook has monetize it with its applications (that for some are merely recognizable as advertisements)

Linkedin has recently started with advertisement but receives part of its revenue from companies who would like to use this professional tool to promote its employer branding and premium membership, which allows a better use of its applications.

Another weakness is the cost of creating such platform, starting with a minimum of 10,000 $ for programming.

The jungle is tight and there is little sunshine left to grow.  Few have failed and have perished in the race.

According to Lorenz Bogaert, founder and CEO of Netlog, at the moment we are assisting to a mature face of evolution of online social networking, the whole is becoming monetized.  The only possible way to gain profit is by finding ways to monetize its use, like opening a shop inside a shopping mall and make it profitable.

A few have done it with linkedin such as the registration to groups such as InvitesWelcome.com (Open Networkers) or GroupLinked.com or LION500.com (Open Networkers) and TopLinked.com (Open Networkers).

I would not recommend to build a social network but if you need to create one, a niche than I would recommend Linkedin groups or NING, which is a online self building social network with all its feature, it is free but  you cannot gain money cause you do not own the site.

How to recruit on Linkedin?

Linkedin has been used for different applications:

* For business purpose: finding new join ventures, business partners, client search

* For Knowledge Management: Gathering information about companies and its turnover

* Sharing knowledge: groups of engineers or scientists gathering together to share information

* Job search: searching the right job or being found by a recuiter.

* Job matching or Recruiting: Searching for workforce

Linkedin provides several tools in order to facilitate the search of interesting profiles.

But first let me give you some tips about the type of profile you can find on Linkedin:

Since people register on Linkedin for different purposes, not all are interested in being contacted for a job. Every person can edit his contact settings which can be showed on its profile:

Contact Settings

Interested In

• career opportunities
• consulting offers
• new ventures
• job inquiries
• expertise requests
• business deals
• reference requests
• getting back in touch

Basically without any charge you can search for profiles on Linkedin, if the person has filled his career path than you have an overview of his resume.

Click on “Advanced People Search”:

The Advanced search permits you to have an overview of keywords and fields that will facilitate your search:

When you have filtered the search, a shortlist will be presented.

The search can be saved, allowing to receive a feedback from the system in case another profile will match your request by email.

How to contact a profile  ?

* You can send an INmail: INmails are internal messages on Linkedin, you can send and receive inmails. It can be viewed on your “inbox” left of your “profile” or “home” screen. Inmails can only be used by premium members that have 3 to 5 Inmails per month, if not used, it can save them.

* You can be introduced to a profile: Relying on someone who is connected to you on the first degree, asking that person to introduce you to the desired person who is connected to him or to someone that is directly connected. Sort of word to mouth message.

* Invite the desired person to be connected to you: Linkedin has a privacy policy, that states that you can only invite someone if you really know that person. Several recruiters have a problem by using this tool. You can either state that this person has worked or done business together or either know his or her email address.  The invited person has the choice to archive your request, to deny by clicking “I don’t know that person” or to accept your request.

N.B. mostly people interested in career opportunities will accept your request if interested (therefore showing their curiousity towards your offer).

In the case a person does not accept your invitation than the system will register denials and will block you from invitation without the person’s email address, explaining that several denials have been registred.

In this case, you will have to send an email to the customer service.

Suitable letter for invitation:

Invitation letters must be informal and personalized.  The invited person must feel the interest regarding his or her profile. You must provide you coordinates in order to be contacted: tel number, company email, mobile, website, etc.

Linkedin has also create a tool dedicated to companies and recruiters:
Linkedin Corporate Solutions or Linkedin recruiter:

This tool (cost around 30,000 $ or more) allows the recruiter to search any profile on the Linkedin network.  The recruiter has the possibility to create job slots on the marketplace of Linkedin jobs (see next article about Linkedin jobs).

You have the possibility to save you search into folders left of the window and bookmarking  the interesting profiles.

This application allows you to contact people, with 250 inmails per month.

The corporate solution provides a company a certain visibility in order to improve its employer branding by creating a company profile.

The company profile provides users with information about the company such as location, updated stocks, who’s who on Linkedin, latest promotions or hired people. It is a very useful information for recruiters for Market intelligence purposes. ( you don’t need a corporate account to view company profiles)

You can view company profiles by clicking on Company:

In order to have good results in recruitment in Linkedin you need to be connected to a lot of people, therefore most of the recruiters on Linkedin are connected to a whole world of people, millions and millions of potential candidates !!! Thus my final words are: Connect yourself to the world !!!

The Excellence of being Linkedin side a business network part 2

Linkedin population:

As you may already know you cannot see entirely other profiles if they are not connected to your network (till the 3d degree) therefore it is important to connect to “open networkers”. These profiles allow you to access their professional network till their second degree of separation, which becomes your 3d degree network. “Open Networkers” are social connectors hungry for connections! they allow everyone to connect with them and they send invitations all along to be at the center of a major hub of connections.  To define the population of Linkedin we need to focus on their behavior. Linkedin is at the moment by far the most visited business network on the Web planet with more than 30 million registrations. The truth is that a lot of this connection are not actively networking but have just a presence inside the network. I call them  “Passive Users“, They have a connection or two, are not involved in any group or do not participate at questions or polls inside the network. They just have a profile with little information about their experience, study and they are not open to contact at any level. The second type of users are the  “Open minded” users, they have a full profile and are frequently using Linkedin as a platform to talk with their colleagues (even with competitors).
With the purpose to share knowledge. For this type of profile, the exchange of information is crucial for the development of its projects. They can accept any job offer but is not actively seeking. They have a network between 50 and 250 direct connections and an estimate of 130,000 connections in the second degree of separation

The last type of users are the “Open Networkers”, as I told previously they are active users of Linkedin, they are connected to thousands and thousand (some more than 15,000) in direct connection. They have a visibility near to the total some of registration (Jan 2009 30 million).

How to search a profile:

Here is a video that permits you to search a profile,by name:

http://www.new.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1104816257657&oid=73545559672

Linkedin poll

[http://polls.linkedin.com/p/20860/pfgmp|leo://plh/http%3A*3*3polls%2Elinkedin%2Ecom*3p*320860*3pfgmp/1YRF]