The Power of Weak Connections

It seems to be accepted without question that success in social media entails creating strong connections with other people in your network or, to flip the statement, that it is always desirable to improve upon your weak connections. The automatic acceptance that strength is categorically good and weakness is categorically bad underestimates the significant power of weak connections, as well as the shortcomings of strong ones.

When I consider the group of people with whom I correspond most frequently in discussion groups, it seems that they are all like myself: we have similar credentials, similar occupations, similar interests, and other strengths in common that facilitates communication among an "inner circle" of participants. Given that we have the same foundations, we can discuss ideas without having to slow down and explain the prerequisite concepts to one another - and I very much enjoy the ability to do so.

But on the other hand, we all tend to have the same weaknesses as well. And as much as it turbocharges our conversation to have common knowledge, it can sometimes cripple the conversation to have common gaps in our knowledge. And worse, to the degree we have the same foundational knowledge, we tend to accept the same premises - anything "new" that one of the group considers is likely an idea that anyone could have had, and any mistake that one of the group makes is likely to be overlooked by the others.

So I think it's fair to say that a group of people who have very strong connections lack diversity of knowledge - and as such fall into groupthink patterns. This can be a serious liability.

On the other hand, when I consider people with whom I have weak connections, it is a much larger number, with a vastly broader array of expertise. Much of it is entirely unrelated to the topics that consume most of my time, but there are many situations in which it is useful to consider. So while I don't derive consistent value from any single person to whom I have a weak connection, I derive a great deal of value from the aggregate, each one infrequently - and this is value I could not have obtained from my strong connections.

Nor would I obtain greater value by strengthening weak connections. I may need to access the knowledge of an accountant, a bartender, a truck driver, a research scientist, an astronaut, a manufacturing executive, or any of a myriad of other people - but each only once in a while. To force interaction to be more frequent than necessary just for the sake of having a "strong" connection seems a pointless waste of my time, and likely a nuisance to the other person.

Aside of the diversity of knowledge, there is also the diversity of second-degree connections. People who are strongly connected to one another also tend to interact with the same people: I already know many of the people to whom my strongest connections are connected, because I have a first-degree connection to the same people. But when it comes to people with whom I share a weak connection, there is a greater number of second-degree connections they have to people I don't already know, and the greater their power to help connect me to someone new.

There may also be a benefit in terms of the level of communication: I am unlikely to share information I have received from a strong connection with another strong connection, because chances are they have already seen it from the original source - and I expect it's the same for any information I provide to them. I am, however, likely to communicate information from my inner circle to those with whom I have weaker connections, or vice versa.

These things considered, I have likely undervalued my weak connections and been perhaps a little too reluctant to accept overtures to connect on social media sites from people I don't know very well, and should likely be a little less handy with the "ignore" button.