jeudi, mai 11, 2006

MARIACHER’S NETWORKING LAW ;-) –OR- WHY DO MY FINDINGS DO NOT CONTRADICT REED'S AND METCALFE'S LAWS

Someone wrote that my findings from a previous post which says “The time and effort required to multiply by 70 the number of 1^st level connections from 100 to 7000 DOES NOT increase significantly visibility and ability to see through the network” contradict Reed’s and Metcalfe’s law.

Metcalfe's law states that the value of a network equals approximately the square of the number of users of the system (n²). Since a user cannot connect to itself, the actual calculation is the number of diagonals and sides in an n-gon: n*(n-1)/2

Reed's law is the assertion of David P. Reed that the utility of large networks, particularly social networks, can scale exponentially with the size of the network.

The reason for this is that the number of possible sub-groups of network participants is 2**n-n-1, where N is the number of participants. This grows much more rapidly than either

the number of participants, N, or
the number of possible pair connections, n*(n-1)/2(which follows Metcalfe's law)

so that even if the utility of groups available to be joined is very small on a per-group basis, eventually the network effect of potential group membership can dominate the overall economics of the system.

To summarize Reed’s and Metcalfe’s laws says that the more you are connected the more opportunities you can find, and I say exactly the opposite…

Actually my findings do not contradict reed’s and metcalfe’s laws. When you read carefully Reed’s and Metcalfe’s laws, both use the verb “can” associated to possibility. These 2 laws stay at the theoretical level. while my findings are based on actual facts and real world where people even when they have the opportunity to connect to a lot of people only connect or accept to be connected to a limited number of people. And when trying to connect through a chain of people, the request is sometimes blocked.

Let me take the opportunity to re-phrase “Mariacher’s NETWORKING law ;-)” in other words:

On a total of 5.5 millions LinkedIn users, here are 2 guys active on LinkedIn trying to sort out if it is worth having 7000 LinkedIn connections compared to only 100?

This question is intended to be discussed as a pure quantity/mathematical question. I don't want to go here in a quantity vs quality discussion.

guy100 has:

110 1^st level connections (of these 110 connections 2 or 3 are connections to mega-connectors).
50000 2^nd level connections
1.3 millions 3^rd level connections

guy7000 has:

7300 1^st level connections
650000 2^nd level connections
2.6 millions 3^rd level connections

“Mariacher’s NETWORKING law :-)” which is based on actual findings and thus use the verb “do” or “be” instead of “can” is divided in 2 main chapters:

visibility

assign a value to every LinkedIn users based on its number of connections
finds that participants are not all equals: there are some active and passive LinkedIn users. The arbitrary threshold between a passive and active user is 1. LinkedIn users having more than 1 connection is called active.
sees that inside active Linkedin users there are some mega-networkers. The arbitrary threshold between a regular active user and a mega-networker is fixed to 1000.
knows that the more users are connected to other users the more:

they become active thus have their Linked networking value increase
you have the opportunity to see their profile

finds that when guy100 does an “elna” keyword search as described in (BASIC LINKEDIN USERS RADIOSCOPY on http://eric-mariacher.blogspot.com/), he roughly sees as many active users as guy7000.

hence the 1^st conclusion I made: “It is not worth having 100 connections instead of 7000 because you can see the same number of active LinkedIn users”.

now let’s go the connectivity chapter

connectivity

LinkedIn is so made that you can directly see the profiles of all your 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd level connections BUT sadly :

there are some linkedIn users who sadly block requests (either intentionally or because they are away) when you try to reach LinkedIn users.

That is why guy7000 has more ways of ACTUALLY connecting to any LinkedIn user because he has more paths to have access to him.
by having more ways to connect to him, guy7000 also have more chances to see who any LinkedIn user knows.

To conclude with another metaphor “guy100 is standing just seeing through its network, guy7000 is seeing and moving in its network”.

Technorati tag this: mariacher, linkedin

mardi, mai 09, 2006

2D OR 3D NETWORKING -OR- IS IT WORTH HAVING 7000 LINKEDIN CONNECTIONS COMPARED TO ONLY 100?

On a total of 5.5 millions LinkedIn users, here are 2 guys active on LinkedIn trying to sort out if it is worth having 7000 LinkedIn connections compared to only 100?

This question is intended to be discussed as a pure quantity/mathematical question. I don't want to go here in a quantity vs quality discussion.

guy100 has:

110 1^st level connections (of these 110 connections 2 or 3 are connections to mega-connectors).
50000 2^nd level connections
1.3 millions 3^rd level connections

guy7000 has:

7300 1^st level connections
650000 2^nd level connections
2.6 millions 3^rd level connections

From these raw numbers we can see that 70 times more 1^st level connections

only bring 13 times more 2^nd level connections which in turn

only bring 2 times more 3^rd level connections.

So is the time and effort required to multiply by 70 the number of 1^st level connections increase significantly visibility and ability to see through the network?

I explained elsewhere (See BASIC LINKEDIN USERS RADIOSCOPY ) that probably half of the 5.5 millions LinkedIn users have only 1 connection and can be deemed as “inactive” LinkedIn users. Of my 2.6 millions 3^rd level connections, probably 1 million to 1.5 millions are not active LinkedIn users.

With its 100 1^st level connections guy100 has access roughly to the same number of active LinkedIn users as guy7000 who has 7000 1^st level connections.

We can safely answer that the time and effort required to multiply by 70 the number of 1^st level connections DOES NOT increase significantly visibility and ability to see through the network.

If by visibility we mean having access to profiles, the above answer is correct.

But if by visibility we mean ability not only to read the profile but to have more than one path to access this person then the answer might not be so clear.

Let’s suppose guy100 and guy7000 want to have access to a person, who for both, is a 3^rd level connection. guy7000 will probably find 70 times more ways of accessing this person at 1^st level and 13 times more ways at 2^nd level.

In addition by seeing more paths, guy7000 will have more knowledge of “who his 1st and 2^nd level connections know” by seeing “connections shared” list of connections.

To conclude with a metaphor the difference between having 110 and 7000 1^st level connections is like the difference between looking at 2D and 3D images. You can see depth when looking at 3D images compared to flat 2D images.

Technorati tag this: mariacher, linkedin

lundi, mai 08, 2006

BASIC LINKEDIN USERS RADIOSCOPY

The goal of this blog is to have a better knowledge of who participate to the LinkedIn business network.

I personally have on a total of 5.5 millions LinkedIn users:

7300 1^st level connections
650000 2^nd level connections
2.6 millions 3^rd level connections

The added number of my 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd levels connections show that I roughly have access to 60% of all LinkedIn users. I want to have a radioscopy of whom I miss.

Keyword search in LinkedIn outputs 2 kind LinkedIn users:

In a 1st tab: LinkedIn users belonging to your network at 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd levels up to 500 people.
In a 2nd tab: LinkedIn users NOT belonging to your network at 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd levels up to 20 people.

To have snapshot of LinkedIn users I did a search on a keyword that must have the following properties:

be neutral i.e. company or country dependant. (A 1^st name would do except that 1^st names are culture dependant). The neutrality of the keyword search is validated by the fact that you have the same proportion between people found in your network and people found outside your network.
bring less than 20 people NOT belonging to your network at 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd levels.

After a few tries, I found that the “elna” keyword fullfilled the previous 2 criterias.

16 LinkedIn users responding to “elna” criteria belong to my network while 12 do not, which more or less makes a 60% ratio which is the same as my overall ratio (3.3 millions vs 5.5 millions).

Here is a summary of the result:

people in my network:

more than 60 connections: 2
8 to 60 connections: 4
2 to 7 connections: 4
1 connection: 6

people outside my network:

more than 60 connections: 0
8 to 60 connections: 1
2 to 7 connections: 4
1 connection: 6

Here is a tentative radioscopy of LinkedIn users based on a basic snapshot:

more than 60 connections -> heavy networker: 7%
8 to 60 connections -> concerned networker: 18%
2 to 7 connections -> average networker: 28%
1 connection -> passive networker: 43%

Technorati tag this: mariacher, linkedin

samedi, mai 06, 2006

My 2 cents about Online Business Networking

1^st advice “Grow your network while you don’t need it”

Perhaps you don’t need to network today, but what about tomorrow?

How do you know that you can’t have any better opportunity than today?

This “Grow your network while you don’t need it” statement may sound weird but it is essential as, to make your network grow, you need to dare inviting people who might decline your invitation. The people you sometimes “blindly” invite may consider you as a spammer. By extension you will also be seen as a spammer by LinkedIn administrators.

If you are in an urgent need of growing your network, for instance looking for your next job, you don’t want to be considered as a spammer, so you want to grow your network before you really need it.

2^nd advice “know why you want to network”

As an example, Here are my goals:

I have 3 types of connections corresponding to 3 different networking styles:

connections (about 100) with people who really know me
connections where we do not know each others but we have something in common
connections for seeing, being visible and help people connecting.

When I'll be aware of some opportunity on Linkedin, I'll hope to be one connection closer as I have many 1st level connections, 2 millions 2nd level and 15 millions 3rd level. Plus thousands on other networking sites (Viadeo for France and Xing for Switzerland).

I am networking applying concurrently these 3 networking styles.

The number of people that I really or better know is growing thanks to GLE face to face meetings for instance or to email exchange I have with several people through LinkedIn.

Regarding “weak” connections meant “for seeing and being visible”, I spend about half an hour per day helping people to connect by forwarding requests, giving advices. I once forwarded a request between people of the same company (I am not part of this company).

These “weak” connections are also a way to rediscover people I really know from school or previous jobs.

Read more on this subject at HOW DOES QUANTITY BRING QUALITY?

3^rd advice "get recommendations from current and past colleagues posted on your profile"

That is one of the top Linkedin or Viadeo feature that does not exists when simply posting your resume on the web.

4th advice "make heavy use of the Q&A feature (on Linkedin) or post on forums"

Show your competencies and what you stand for by using one of the top "LinkedIn plus" feature. By browsing through your questions and answers people wanting to know you better will get a better feeling of who you are. If not registered on LinkedIn use the web groups features (especially on Yahoo). (read also What will be the successor of the current user profile in online networks?, Finding a $250K contract on LinkedIn Answers - Steven Shimek, Ruder Finn PR ).

5th advice “never use standard boiler plate templates” when inviting people to connect

In your invitations be specific, explain clearly and honestly why YOU want to connect with them.

6^th advice/fact “The more connections you have, the more time you must spend”

With 1000’s of connections, I spend at least half an hour a day to keep my network alive.

I forward requests, answer questions, give and read advices, Update some various wikis, participate to various Yahoo and Google groups.

By answering questions, forwarding requests, I give a little bit of my time to many people, I hope that a small portion of them will also spend some time when I'll need it.