Six Degrees = Social Networking Success

You may have read a week or so ago the big news that scientists actually proved that like the oft-played game "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon," any person is indeed only 6.6 degrees separated from any other person. While that is truly an amazing fact, I can't say it surprised me. I cannot believe how often I come upon someone my husband or I know or who knows someone we know.

Shortly after I read that, I had a really weird, but really cool, six-degree moment. I found a former colleague from many moons ago on LinkedIn and made her one of my connections. Well, one of her connections saw that, checked me out and came to realize we've followed the same geographic path throughout our lives. When I was in high school in Kentucky, she was in college there. When I moved to Cincinnati to work, she had too. And now she lives in South Carolina working as an independent PR practitioner and knows some fellow PR acquaintances of mine up in Greenville. And even though we were on parallel life paths, we never would have met each other had it not been for LinkedIn.

Which brings me to my point. Why does social networking work? Because we are all so closely connected anyway. We may just not know it. Social networking makes it apparent. There's a quote from Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, about social networking "digitizing your social life." It does that and it also makes it more efficient. Instead of hearing about a friend of a friend and having to remember them or make a mental note to call them when you need their service, now you can always be connected online with all their info. right at your fingertips and their Web site or email one click away.

It is a small world after all.