The Reliants Project #48
How networks shape our lives
Thank you for signing up to all the new readers! Here’s a collection of nuggets about how networks shape your wellbeing, relationships and community to help you actively cultivate yours.
Wellbeing
While The Network Effects Masterclass series by NfX does target founders, episode 8 is called Your Network Is Driven By Network Effects. It is an expansion of their very popular article with the same title that I shared a while back. It focuses on how networks shape our lives and what you can do about it.
Relationships
My partner shared this delightfully geeky analysis of how many times a couple crossed paths before they actually met. How fateful? spends a lot of time on the process, using Google location data, but you can skip about half way down to Common Locations to start seeing maps of their paths crossing. It’s a fantastic reminder that “There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven't yet met.”
“It makes me feel very philosophical. Likely we had walked past each other every other week for three years with our heads down, or in the clouds, paying very little notice to the people around us. Past Channon had not the foggiest clue what impact an unnoticed stranger would come to have on her. Since learning this I can’t help but look at the passers-by in my day-to-day life in a different light.”
Community
This recent McKinsey article, podcast, and report, Social capital: Build back better relationships at work, discusses social capital in the context of a workplace. They cover how social capital supports career development, creativity, diversity, innovation, performance, and retention among other important issues. They also identify some unfortunate discrepancies between genders and levels of seniority:
“The difference in motivation across genders and corporate roles is striking. About one-third of the men in our survey report investing energy in getting in touch with old contacts, building new relationships, and strengthening existing ones. By contrast, only one-quarter of women in our survey are doing the same…
Meanwhile, about half of the senior leaders in our survey report investing energy to build their networks, compared with only about 15 percent of frontline workers.”
Resources
Links to the most commonly used content:
The Reliants Project Library: Recommended resources for the community curious
Community Reading List: Favourite books of the Atomico Community Team
The Reliants Project newsletter archive: Links I’ve shared in previous newsletters
About The Reliants Project
Reliant is my word for a person that someone depends on, an essential component of our social networks. With each edition, I’ll share useful nuggets about how networks shape your wellbeing, relationships, and community to help you actively cultivate yours. Whether you want to make better introductions, build better social products and services, or activate networks to make an impact in the world, let me help you reach your goals.
You can find more about The Reliants Project here.