Three degrees of separation, four at most?

About the Author:  Tim Rippon, MBCI, has been recognised by the BCI for his involvement and efforts in Business Continuity, receiving the ‘Continuity and Resilience Professional (Private Sector)’ 2015 Australasian BCI Award. Having worked in various industry sectors in a diverse range of roles, Tim has a far-reaching network of industry professionals with whom he engages regularly and from whom he is able to draw upon for advice and support. Tim has commenced writing LinkedIn articles to share some of his unique views and experiences. Last year Tim 'activated / invoked' his Business Continuity Plan and now runs his own consultancy 'elasticus'.

Three degrees of separation, or four at most?

Let’s call it out, there are no longer six degrees of separation, in regards to knowing anyone on this planet.

I’m of the belief that there are only three degrees of separation whereby somebody, knows somebody, who knows someone else, resulting us knowing everyone (or very close to) on this planet.

Many things have changed over the past few decades. We are more connected, have closer densities of living, have a wider variety of relationships utilising many different mediums and technologies to connect more rapidly.

In regards to my recent experiences, earlier today I had a recruiter call me as I knew a candidate he was trying to seek down without any success, to which I was able to assist.

Over the past two days I attended a conference here in Melbourne and there were a few of us on the stand and we often knew the people visiting the stand or the organisation with some level of past experience.

Social media such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter are ever increasingly being used by a large proportion of the global population.

So, whilst we may be connected to more people, the quality of these connections may not be like what they once were. 

I recall in my childhood years that we had a lovely worker on our farm ‘Arthur’ who was a big role model in my early stages of life. We spent many hours each week fishing, farming and talking about a wide variety of things.  Over my childhood years, I learned a great deal from Arthur and I am now of the opinion he also learned a great deal about life from me. These truly genuine people seem harder to find in this modern, ‘always on, always connected’ world.

Whilst we have a ‘trusted network’ of key people that we work / live / refer to, the periphery appears to be people we may have only briefly met online, or who may have provided a contact number in a fleeting moment.

Hence the key now is not to be overwhelmed at the volume of people we are connected to, rather to focus on fostering more genuine, stronger, longer term relationships, using the most effective channels of communications at our disposal. Empathy, trust and a form of humbleness are all tools that may be required to strengthen / foster these relationships.

“Referrals”

Given we now live in a more populous and ever connected world I welcome any good referrals to speak with people who have continuity, resilience and information security concerns that require solving, or who anyone would like to know more about these areas of interest.

For more information, feel free to contact me directly or take a look at the elasticus website:

elasticus

1800 753 139

[email protected]

www.elasticus.com.au

Suite 777, 585 Little Collins St Melbourne VIC 3000