I’ve always been interested in Mark Granovetter’s theory around the “Strength in Weak Ties.” In the 1970s he asked a group of people about how they had got their job. Of those who found jobs through personal contacts 55.6% reported seeing their contact occasionally (more than once a year, but less than twice a week) and 27.8% rarely (once a year or less). When asked whether a friend had told them about their current job, the most frequent answer was “not a friend, an acquaintance.”

I’m very much a weak tie man. I love serendipity – and I enjoy matching people up who have similar interests/objectives from all over the place. This week has been a joy for me – with my new found love of Twitter. It’s not the chatting that I like – it’s the opening up of a new world of people with similar interests/objectives to me. I’m enjoying creating the seeds of relationships at the very outer circles of my Personal Network.

Here are some examples of people who have appeared in the last 7 days who seem to share my passion for Personal Networks….



Jason Armishaw @jasonarmishaw from New Zealand. His business is the PeoplePeople. He also has a new business launching in 2011 – like me! I “discovered” Jason when he wrote a great blog piece “Is Off-line Networking Dead?”


Heather Townsend @joinedupnetwork from Milton Keynes, UK. She is the Author of the forthcoming book The FT Guide to Biz Networking. Her business is called JoinedUpNetworking. I came across Heather when she wrote a blog post called “When does a contact become a genuine connection?”

Jordi Robert-Ribes @jordi_pro is based in Andorra. His speciality seems to be Networking into New Worldsand is also an Investments Director. Again through Twitter, I found a very seasonal blog post “Christmas cards don’t nurture your network”

Jason Jacobsohn @JasonJacobsohn is over in Chicago. He’s definitely part of Malcolm Gladwell’s band of Connectors – and speak on networking. His company is called Networking Insight. The post that I found via Twitter was “9 Reasons why your Network is your Greatest Asset”. If you get the chance – head over there and add to the list!

There were a bunch of other people too – but these 4 stand out as understanding the Value of Personal Networks. Overall, a great first week on Twitter – and I’m very happy that my Personal Network is being enriched by these distant links.