Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2012
Caldarelli, Guido and Catanzaro, Michele
He explained this result by depicting the circle of acquaintances of a hypothetical individual called Ego. Ego lives every day with his family and some close friends. Probably all these persons are also in close contact with each other. As a result, information travels fast in the group. So Ego is likely aware of all the news available in the group. On the contrary, weak ties connect him to faraway people. These individuals are not bounded by Ego's social surroundings. Therefore they open a whole set of new groups to him, each of them encapsulating information otherwise inaccessible. Missing the opportunity of weak ties causes difficulties in organizations, companies, or institutions. Information and skills become trapped in one group, without reaching those who need them. So these things have to be reinvented or paid for from outside things have to be reinvented or paid for from outside consultants. A former CEO of HP is reported to have lamented: 'If HP only knew what HP knows! developed into the theory of social capital. This idea implies that the contacts of one person (and the contacts of these contacts) enable him or her to access resources that ultimately provide such things as better jobs and faster promotions. More generally, the position of an individual in his or her social network is crucial to determine future opportunities, constraints, outcomes, etc." page 30
-----------------------------------------------
I was going to write a brief review about this book. This is all I wanted to say: Patrick Doreian's Review on the book
