Social networking tools have become commonplace (Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc.). While these tools allow people to create a surface-level connnection, they are (at best) tools that create very weak ties. Imagine a network 5,000 people wide. All of those relationships must be shallow. In fact, if you have 5,000 people in your LinkedIn network, you [...]

I’ve recently been doing a lot of reading about social capital, and I came across a very thought-provoking quote. Every kind of network can be found among any group of managers, but only certain kinds of networks contribute to early promotion for certain kinds of managers. (Burt, Ronald. Structural Holes. Harvard UP: 1992.) Burt’s quote [...]

My friend, Rajesh Setty, made the following comment during a recent conversation: “When you build a relationship, you make a commitment to give away a piece of yourself. You cannot create a relationship any other way.” Some people do not want to give away parts of themselves, so they make surface relationships and pretend that [...]

A friend of mine, Peter Winick, recently made the following observation. “When you’re ten years old, you can only go as far as your bike will take you. Anything further than two miles may as well be two-thousand miles.” Some of us are completely comfortable jumping on a plane for a business meeting. Myself, I’ve [...]