Burt and Success

Apologies for the extremely dumb-ed out title to this post.

Yesterday, my friend Goat and I attended a really fun and well-presented talk by Ron Burt (RB) who is currently visiting the U. Among other things, this sociologist fulfilled my quotient of being quite the entertaining kind and kept the small crowd of intellects , academics and skeptics amused through dialogue and pictures.

I must admit that I started off as being curiously interested in his work (As a side, RB is the father of the structural holes concept) .. And as the talk came to a close, strangely enough his arguments weren't so convincing anymore, or maybe a better word to use is non-intuitive. Ron spoke about Network-Related Personality and the Agency Question: Multi-Role Evidence from a Virtual World. He had stats and graphs extrapolated from actual data and studies on EverQuest , but something didn't fit.

I think his study seemed to imply that loosely associated individuals (i.e. those that have weaker connections within their social clusters), have a higher chance of attaining success and growth in the industry. Yes, so if you are part of a network (personal or professional) that has more spokes as opposed to triangles, it is likely that you will have more opportunities to grow , make money and acquire other worldly successes. Other real life examples included - he came up with Professor-student & Gamer1-Gamer2 analogies that made sense on paper and were logical for the sake of argument. But then..and I don't admit this particular fact too much, but lo and behold - Logic isn't sufficient at times.. And there was no mental picture nor a culmination of ideas that formulated itself to make go 'Aaaah, of course it is like that'.

Here look at this graph:

(I tried in vain to change the orientation but Blogspot editor is not reciprocating in any way that I would call friendly. Dislike bad UIs)

Anyway.. so in the x-axis ,if you tilt your head just enough, is the degree of structural or network constraint in social space. Lower down, you have more structural holes (gaping at you) , i.e. fewer tight associations with any particular group of individuals. As you go further, the number of holes decrease and your community gets knitted tightly. This is scaled from 0 to 100, and as you can see 35 is the median. 100% implies you are literally stuck in the abyss of connections who think , eat , function, talk and probably even dress up like you.

On the y-axis (and for this you must do a 90 degree shift of the neck) there is an indicator of your Performance - measured using z score that takes into account evaluation, compensation and promotion.

Now the graph clearly shows that success is somewhat inversely proportional to the number of structural holes i.e. if you stand out or are mostly disassociated , you get more moolah. Hmm, okay so yes one has to be unique in contribution and bring out new ideas to get noticed, but here we are talking about actual associations with folk you surround yourself with, whether by choice or otherwise. Both virtual and in the real physical sense. Apparently, a smaller count of triangles est good.

So the questions to think about are - "How much does personality matter for network advantage?" OR "Is it even possible to measure an ego's network advantage in a given role and then deduce the level of success and achievement by simply looking at the ego's social graph?"

I tend to be aloof by choice and if needed. At several points I even felt like a loner, as if common sense wasn't common any more, as if I had more to criticize than appreciate in a world so imperfect. But I couldn't have made it this far without mooching off the brains and experiences of the several interesting people I have associated myself with over the years. I continue to do so, it's an ongoing process , like culturing bacteria in a petri-dish.

I haven't done research to say with any kind of conviction that I am right in my post analysis of RB's speech. And I don't have substantial proof other than a self example which isn't allowed in real world science. No personal biases and all that, right? However, I have made a decent number of climbs both in school and at work, and I believe I lie somewhere around the pencil squiggly in the graph. You know.. I like to think that I am special and dreamily stand out, but I know for sure that my ties, my social circle and the people I have subconsciously associated with have greatly influenced my current position. And I also like to think I have had a fair share of successes, and am happy even with a dwindling bank balance and a bus pass for the local metro *Smug* Clearly, degree of connected-ness is not the only factor influencing the good things you've achieved in life. Not black and white, but a million shades of grey.

Yes, I have picked my connections with deliberation. If you are my friend, then I hope it is evident to you that the conversations last long because I think your opinions are interesting and bring to the table a perspective I don't already see. And I secretly hope you reciprocate in similar thought. About life, about work, about the neighborhood tea stall, about the quality of fabric in a store, about a painting, about the sky and the constellations, about annoying traits in the family, about silence and nothing intelligent.. I am associated with you because deep inside , and even though I don't always realize it, your link adds a certain amount value which has some measure of positive weight in my graph. Else sadly enough, I would get bored and find myself eventually ignoring you simply put... I am so snooty like that. Oh well forgive me. Or don't.

P.S.

I know I don't have an audience as such, but what do you think? (Since you've reached till here, care to tell me?)

P.P.S.

Haha I just realized that I started and ended this post with apologies. Note to self that must be remedied -_-.

Read more about Ron Burt, his work and his brilliant mind - Personal pick as an engaging scientist and sociologist.