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Are “Degrees of Separation” Important to Networking?
Posted on March 30, 2017 at 5:53 PM |
In the early 90’s three Pennsylvania college boys with too much time on
their hands decided that every actor living or dead could be linked to Kevin
Bacon. Although never a big box office
draw, Bacon has been in a significant number of films and the boys discovered
that if you use Bacon as an end point, you can link him in six degrees or less
to almost any other performer. So, from
that humble beginning The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon was born. For example, Alfred Hitchcock and Elvis Presley can both be linked to
Kevin Bacon. Just for fun let’s imagine that Kevin Bacon is an open networker and
all the actors in this example are currently living. Kevin would like to add to
his suspense and psychological thriller genres and believes Alfred Hitchcock
could be just the ticket. Kevin Bacon contacts Jack Nicholson: Jack, I hope all well! Hey, I
really enjoyed working with you on “A Few Good Men.” I wanted to reach out to you and see if you could help with an introduction
to Alfred Hitchcock. I know you are not directly connected to Alfred, but you
were in “A Safe Place” with Orson Wells. And Orson Wells was in “Show Business at War” with Mr. Hitchcock. Based on those common connections, could I ask you to pass along my
request? Jack Nicholson replies to Kevin Bacon: Kevin,
you can’t handle the truth! “A Safe Place” was a critical and box-office disaster! In fact, Time magazine called the film
"pretentious and confusing.” Wow, sorry to hear that. But can I depend on you to sell my
introduction to Mr. Hitchcock through Mr. Wells? Son we live in a world that has walls, social
capital walls, “what’s in it for me” walls.
But OK Kevin, I’ll do you a big favor,
but I’m not making any promises. Jack Nicholson contacts Orson Wells: Orson, I hope all is well! Hey, it’s been awhile since we worked
together on “A Safe Place,” but I’ve got this young friend who would like to
meet Alfred Hitchcock. I noticed you and
Alfred worked together on “Show Business at War.” Would you be open to making that
introduction? Orson’s reply to Jack: Jack, I had completely forgotten we worked
together. In fact, I almost deleted your
message without even reading it. You
see, I’ve tried to erase the “A Safe Place” experience from my mind because it
was such a disaster. Concerning your
request, no I can’t help. I wouldn’t
feel comfortable reaching out to Mr. Hitchcock.
You see “Show Business at War” was a short film, only 17 minutes in length. It was sponsored by Time Inc. in 1943 to tout
the United States film industry’s contribution to the Second World War effort. And the fact of the matter is that I never personally
met Alfred during that brief project. So what point, conclusions or action steps am I trying to
make here? 1. If you are an open networker,
and that strategy works for you, keep doing what you are doing. I would never order a “code red” on a
strategy that is delivering results. 2. If that strategy is not
working then order the code red immediately because “The Strength of Weak Ties”
theory does not guarantee networking success. Asking connections of connections for a favor is a difficult
tactic to pull off. In those situations
it’s obvious that your focus is completely self-centered, and most people are
afraid of being taken advantage of by people they barely know or have no
emotional investment in. |
Categories: Personal Branding, Social Networking
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