Glenn Myers's Reviews > Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives

Only three stars for this well-researched, original and intriguing book, mainly because I was much more interested in the original and intriguing conclusions rather than the many pages of social and psychological research and anecdote. These Harvard profs doubtless want to strut their academic stuff but I would have liked (at least) more in the way of summary and signpost, For all that, fascinating, thought-provoking and one of those books that makes you think differently for ever after.

Here are some of the things I learnt from reading (and extrapolating from) this book.

1. We won't understand humans just by thinking of individuals, or yet of social class or race, So things about us are only explicable by seeing us as part of networks. For example, stock market crashes (or exuberance) are much more explained by people being influenced by the network around them, rather than the facts.

2. We affect others in many striking and unexpected ways, and these effects only die out after three degrees of separation: friends of friends of friends.Happiness, obesity, suicide, political affiliation, how piano teachers find new pupils, all show up as clusters in networks. Many things work better (health messages, evangelism) when we think of reaching a network rather than reaching a set of individuals. Persuade a well-connected person to change, and change may spread through the network; persuade someone on the edge of things, and only her or she may change.

3.. All of us instinctively seem to know or pick up our place in a given network, eg workplace, new church etc. We know if we're on the edge; we know if we're well-connected, and that knowledge affects our wellbeing.

4, Because we influence others so much (I think) it is important who speaks first at a meeting. The second speaker has the option of tweaking or agreeing (easy) or radically disagreeing (hard). If a queue of people have already agreed, it's even harder to disagree and harder still to carry the day.

5. A fruitful place to find all kinds of new relationship (romantic, business etc) is the network of your friends' friends. It's a much larger network than the one just made up of your friends, but it's also preselected to be full of possibly congenial people and both you and they are have a place to start your relationship that is superior to the cold call or the chance meeting.

6. Creative teams work well when they are (a) small and very interconnected and (b) loosely connected to others so that they can get fresh creative input. A team of people just thrown together doesn't work too well, nor does one who all know each other very well and have nothing fresh coming in from outside.