Six Degrees of Separation “Six Degrees of Separation” is the theory that everyone is six or fewer steps away, by way of introduction, from any other person in the world, so that a chain of "a friend of a friend" statements can be made to connect any two people in a maximum of six steps. It is also known as the “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon”. When you look at Professional Networking using Bridgers and Insiders to discover opportunities in a target organization, it sure sounds a lot less intimidating when you are only six steps away from success. When we teach our audience on the skills of face-to-face Networking, we are trying to minimize the intimidation factor most people feel about doing this. You understand the theory, it all sounds fine but trying to do it is scary initially. When you realize the theory of six degrees of separation, that should build confidence in using the technique that is used to find 80-90% of the jobs that fit. Origins It was originally set out by Hungarian author, Frigyes Karinthy in 1929 as early thoughts on social networks and the shrinking world. 30 years later, in 1961, Michael Gurevich at MIT attempted a simulation to validate the theory. These carried out and published in 1973 predicting 3 degrees of separation across the US population. Stanley Milgram and Harvard University in 1978 published what generated enormous publicity for their work on social networks. The “six factor” was later popularized by a play written by John Guare which most incorrectly associated the “six factor” with the Harvard published report. Recent History- Facebook Study In 2003 Columbia University conducted the first large scale replication of the theory called “Columbia’s Small World Project”. It included 24,000 email chains worldwide. This confirmed the “six degrees of separation”. In 2007, actor Kevin Bacon launched www.sixdegrees.org , a web site built on the popularity of the theory “small world phenomenon”, to create a charitable social network. From this, the game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” was invented at Albright College in Pennsylvania. In 2011 Facebook’s team released 2 papers on research of their 721 million users with 69 billion friendship links. Their initial work back in 2009 with 5.8 million users reflected a separation of 5.73 with a maximum of 12. The 2011 paper noted an average distance of separation of 4.74! In 2012 Google made it possible to search for their “Bacon Number” through their search engine. So if it is such a “small world” then finding opportunities through Networking should be easier than we think. No wonder 85% of the jobs that fit are found through Networking!

Sept 2013

Copyright, Job Search Workshops for MetroWest. All rights reserved. By Robert Dandrade