What's Scale-Free?

by Byron Woodson II

Have you heard the term 'scale free networks'? What about 'the long tail'? If not, you have now (smirk). Knowing what scale-free networks are and how they operate is important if you're serious about networking. It's important because they tell you about the environment in which you network. It's like a farmer or sailor understanding weather patterns. Something not immediately relevant, until there's a storm coming.

So in a few of the books about networks, the authors regularly talk about "scale-free networks". What they mean by that is that some rules of networks hold, regardless of size.

Let's say you have one network (A) whose size is 100, and another (B) whose size is 1000. What scale-free means is that both of these networks are going to act approximately the same way. For instance, you'll always have a few highly-connected nodes (popular people or web pages) and you'll have a lot more marginally-connected nodes (the long tail).

If you have a node that is connected to let's say 50 nodes, that may be the largest node in the smaller network (A) but a small node in the larger network (B). It's the old big fish/small pond thing. What scale-free means is that there will always be some highly-connected nodes who are more connected than the rest.

What's that got do do with us networkers and netweavers? Well, it means that you can be a netweaver or networking on a large or small scale, or even medium. You might be the most popular person on your block, but not the most popular person in your neighborhood.

The easy way to become the most popular person in the neighborhood is to become friends with the kids who are popular on their block. If that doesn't work, the not-as-easy way is to become friends with more of the semi-popular kids in the neighborhood (on other blocks). This is semi-easy because even though they aren't as popular, they do know other kids. The hard way is to link up with all the uncool people (long tail). This is the hardest because they have the least amount of friends.

So the math generally goes that to be popular, connected if you know two popular people (who each know ten people), five semi-popular people (who each know four people), or twenty unpopular people (who all talk to themselves). These numbers aren't scientifically proven, just used to illustrate my point. So if you want to maximize your 'networking' effectiveness, you want to introduce yourself not to the popular people, but to the people who the popular people know.

Why?

Because the popular people can't put everyone on their roster, they already hang out with ten people. The semi-popular crowd know four or five people, they have attention to spare! And it's easier to get to know five people with attention to spare than it is to get to know two people with no attention to spare (popular folk).

Note that though I am talking about 'popular people' this applies as much to kids on the block and children in school as it does to politicians, managers, supervisors and business owners.

In terms of business, this means that you have to meet and start to play with the mid-sized boys, in order to play with the big boys. Over time, your networking and netweaving strategy should be to meet people who know as many people as you, but who know different people. If you regularly meet people with different sets of friends, you automatically expand how many people you can get in contact with. That's your networking strategy.

Your netweaving strategy is to introduce a few people you know to people you don't know well. This creates redundancy. This kind of redundancy is good, like multiple power lines during a storm (if one goes out you still have the other), not bad redundancy like two keyboards and one computer (you don't have two sets of hands). By introducing the new person (someone who knows who you want to know) to other people in your network you:
1. increase the number of people that person knows,
2. increase the chances that they'll find someone useful or helpful,
3. they see that you're connected and willing to help out (good for karma).

Most peopel think that to move up in political, business or professional networking, you have to meet the executives and politicians. The best way to do that is to find and get close to the middle-managers and political staff, the people that work with and for the people you want to meet. Don't just meet one person, meet them all. When you become popular among the staff and friends (network) of the 'heavyweight', you'll find that the heavyweight wants to meet you, at least to find out who the hype is all about.

This all sounds easy, it is and it isn't. It is definitely not an over-night phenomenon. This is more like a few months long campaign to 'get known'. But different from a political campaign where you simply want to meet people, you're campaigning to get the people you know to meet other people. The aim is to integrate your network into a larger network. You'll be at the center of people who know people. When you're networking you're always looking for bigger fish to meet. When you're netweaving, you're always looking for bigger fish for your friends to meet.

Whether you have seven people or three-hundred people in your rolodex (or "soul-o-dex" as George Frazier puts it), the principles are the same.

And Ladies and Germs: that's "scale-free".

by the way Ivan Misner founder of Business Networking International the world's largest referral network says the same thing!