Chapter Quotes

Authors of Our Own Success?

“The search for individual expression is genuine enough, but it takes place within groups and it is spread by networks. And, in many ways, networks are the antithesis of the lone individual. Even when they are spontaneous and anarchic in origin, networks favour big concentrations and bind people together in ways that no individual intended or can control.”

Do You Live in a Small World?

“Do you think six degrees of separation is roughly right? Or just wishful thinking?

It’s quite an important question. Another way of putting it is: do you live in a small world or a big world? A small world in this case means one where you can easily connect to anyone you desire. It doesn’t mean that your world is provincial or limited; quite the opposite. A big world implies one where communication falters or dies, a world of separate groups, defeated by distance or social barriers.”

The Strength of Weak Links

“[Grannovetter] had the idea of contrasting the effectiveness of ‘strong ties’ – those with close friends and family – with ‘weak ties’, that is, more casual, sporadic, unplanned and fleeting contacts. His central insight – that weak ties or links are often much more valuable than strong ties – was initially puzzling. Granovetter said that the people with whom we spend little time can frequently be far more useful to us than those we see every day, those with whom we have intimate and intense relationships, those who actively try to help us. He also argued that weak ties between acquaintances or strangers are more important to society than the strong ties of friendship. How could this be?”

The Superconnectors

“These are relatively humble folk who can connect because they have placed themselves at the centre of a social system, even a little-known or newly concocted one, or because they intrude into two or three systems that would otherwise be isolated from one another. The illustrations of ordinary superconnectors should give us pause and hope. Perhaps on some level this world is open to us as well; perhaps we are already very close to being a superconnector but have not realised the value of our role.”

Heaven, Hell and Hubs

“How could so many big banks in the United States and the United Kingdom, with full complicity of regulators and almost no internal dissent, have built their businesses on sand? How can the most democratic and open societies bring themselves to lock up suspects for years without trial, or practise rendition and torture?

These are grave phenomena indeed, and are not just due to the villainy of bankers or politicians, who, after all, are much like you and me.”

Cyberspace – Brave New World?

“Beyond inventions and new technologies, society is most profoundly changed by radical ideas, such as the dignity of all human life, liberalism, nationalism, democracy and socialism, or more practical concepts, such as Keynesian economics and the importance of maintaining purchasing power to avoid depressions and mass unemployment. Despite the regressive tendencies of some recent world leaders – some now mercifully dead or retired – most people in Europe and the Americas are now free from the fear of being tortured, something that was not true three hundred years ago. Ideas and social norms are at least as important as the means of communication that propagate them. To some extent at least, the message really is the message.”

Rolodex Roulette

“There is something fascinating in the way that our personal relationship machines occasionally produce a bonanza. We might not know why we talk to someone or keep in touch with them – we might forget all about them for 99.9 per cent of our lives – yet if theyhave a good network of weak links, we might suddenly benefit. So is there something we can do to make such serendipitous events more likely or frequent? Can we rig the odds in our favour by investing in a larger number of appropriate casual contacts, like sprinkling a large number of small bets on all the roulette tables we can find?”

Hub to Hub

Our interviewees strike a note of caution about dog-eat-dog organisations or very large ones. ‘I decided not to join Shell,’ says Paul Judge, ‘when the secretary taking me between interviews got lost in the corridor.’

The Network Structure of Ideas

“There is a structure to the way information is found in nature, in a library or on the Web. The structure is embedded, universal and follows mathematical rules. There is also a structure – a network structure – for the way excellent ideas are discovered and disseminated. Once this has been grasped, anyone can innovate with confidence.”

Network Stars

“Network stars are the business world’s beneficiaries of the phenomenon observed by Barabási and Albert – the inexorable concentration of networks. They outgun normal stars due to what we’ve come to term ‘network effects’ – instances where a product’s value for any single user becomes correlated to the total number of users. The more users it has, the better the product. The consequence is a natural tendency to ‘winner takes most’ or ‘winner takes all’ end games, resulting from the insurmountable product advantages of the leading player.”

The Business of Weak Links

“The way we gather information is to be discreet but completely open internally. All information is triangulated to build a composite picture and to avoid being misled by a few pieces of rogue data. There is no ‘need to know’ policy here. The only hanging offence is if someone hoards information – the bankers in particular take some time to adjust to this.”

Poverty, Urban Renewal and Gangsters

“Poverty displays similar characteristics all around the world – in Harlem and New Orleans, in Peru and rural Bangladesh, in Paris and London, in Johannesburg and Detroit. Moreover, the effects of poverty were much the same in the pre-industrial world, in early America and in the Great Depression as they are today. And they are similar in inner cities, remote villages, ghettos and shanty towns. Being poor is about being confined to limited enclaves, unable to break free, unable to climb up to even the lowest level of property and capital formation. Poverty is about the absence of varied networks, of connections to people who are economically and socially active.”

A Network Society

“Imagine standing still and in formation with hundreds of thousands of fellow-devotees, all wearing the same smart uniform, in a huge stadium, cheering an inspirational speech by The Leader. You appear to be connected, but you cannot talk to your neighbour or step out of line. You are being choreographed. The connection is impersonal, synthetic and ultimately fraudulent. No new information is exchanged as a result of such ‘contact’, because there is absolutely no authentic or spontaneous communication.”