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***** To join INSNA, visit http://www.insna.org ***** Don, Great points... reminds me of this... Q: How do you identify a "newbie" or "noob" in the field of social network analysis? A: They refer to the field as "social networkING analysis" I wrote a long blog post on "building job networks" recently. What I recommend to people is to re-activate their "true weak ties" -- those, usually dormant, ties they have with old friends, classmates, colleagues who are now occupying different social circles. There is usually dormant trust in these ties -- these are people who actually don't mind putting themselves at risk to recommend you to their boss or colleague [A brand new person you just met through "networking" will not do this for you]. The best way to build a network [see chinese proverb at beginning of my blog post] is to actually work with people, often volunteering, organizing a conference, etc. "Networking", "schmoozing" and job fairs will NOT do it. I have a friend I have been advising since she got laid off. She has added ties to her network... it took about 1 year to add these trusted ties, through regular contact [working on things together]. She is close to an offer, initiated and hopefully closed[references] through these new ties. Blog post is here... http://is.gd/Mv5i Valdis On Jun 2, 2009, at 2:20 PM, Don Steiny wrote: > ***** To join INSNA, visit http://www.insna.org ***** > > Mario, > > I have to comment on this (my inner demons are making me). The > term "social capital" does not have a single meaning and Joel > Podolny ages ago in a class he taught at Stanford would say "if you > need to build a network to get something like a job, it is already > too late". Likewise Wayne Baker makes this point as a central theme > of "Achieving Success Through Social Capital". Mark Granovetter has > an amusing story which basically describes getting a birthday phone > call from someone you can barely remember, then it dawns on you "I'm > being networked." I often see journal papers that talk of > "building social networks" and when people say that it usually seems > they are missing the point of social networks entirely. I did some > research and as far as I can tell the term "networking" was invented > by feminists in the 80's. They hoped to build "old girl" networks > to counter the "old boy" networks that created a glass ceiling and > to help with business success. In short, the idea of "networking" as > it is taught in "how to find a job or enhance your business" > seminars has been somewhat outside of the concept of social networks > until recently. I assume this has a lot to do with the redefinition > of the term due to LinkedIn and so on. > > -Don _____________________________________________________________________ SOCNET is a service of INSNA, the professional association for social network researchers (http://www.insna.org). To unsubscribe, send an email message to [log in to unmask] containing the line UNSUBSCRIBE SOCNET in the body of the message.