Weak Ties and Social Productivity

source: Asian Efficiency

I was recently at a large conference of affiliate marketers here in Bangkok. Affiliate marketing is an online industry - think of it as door-to-door salesmen, but online.

It’s not really the same as what we do at Asian Efficiency… but I had a friend speaking at the event so I figured hey, let’s go check it out.

The event itself as well-organized and fine and all that, but here’s the interesting thing - I walked away from the event with: 1) ideas, 2) increased motivation, and 3) increased productivity. Over the next week or so the increase number of ideas, perspectives and the increased productivity as a result of that became really noticeable.

So it got me thinking: why was that? How did attending a conference that is only somewhat related to what we do at Asian Efficiency kick-off a surge of productivity for me?

The answer is Social Productivity.

We’ve talked about Social Productivity before, in very vague terms. In fact, most people just describe it as “be around productive people to become more productive” - which makes sense. But we’ve always suspected that there was more to it than that, but didn’t know exactly how it all worked.

Of course, we’ve been hard at work trying to break down exactly what constitutes Social Productivity and how it can be structured into a set of principles and actionable steps.

And now we have one piece - the power of weak ties. And of course, as a newsletter subscriber, you’re the first to hear about it!

Weak Ties and Social Network Theory

Before Facebook was Facebook there existed a body of study called Social Network Theory. It’s all about mathematics and probability theory, but it provides a useful framework for explaining how weak ties and Social Productivity work.

In Social Network Theory there exists the following:

(Make sure you enable images to see this diagram.)

• Nodes. Nodes are essentially people or entities or actors in a particular network.
• Weak Ties. Weak ties describe the relationship between two nodes, where the nodes “just know” each other. In the real world this would be the friend of a friend or an acquaintance you’ve met once or twice.
• Strong Ties. Strong ties describe the relationship between two nodes where the nodes know each other well and have a lot in common. In the real world these are your friends, co-workers, family and people closest to you.

Now here’s the interesting thing. In Social Network Theory, the more weak ties you have, the more information you can obtain from the network.

This is because weak ties have two roles in networks:

1. Providing the structure and framework of the network.
2. The transmission of information across the network.

Let’s think about how this works in the real world.

You have your strong ties - family, friends - who typically have the same values, beliefs, contacts (nodes) and environments as you. So whatever information YOU have access to, your strong ties probably also have access to as well.

Contrast this with weak ties - you only sort-of know them. Chances are they inhabit entirely different social circles and networks from you. Whatever information you have access to, they likely don’t, and it goes the other way too - they have access to information and resources that you do not.

As a thought experiment, think about where the new input in your life has come from… chances are, it has come from people you only tangentially know - your weak ties.

Another interesting example is ask people around you how they got their current job - chances are, it came as a connection from someone they didn’t know all that well.

Now while I could geek out about social network theory and probabilities all day, let’s see how this applies to Social Productivity.

How This Makes You Productive

So take the conference that I went to. I knew 2 people there really well - my friend who was speaking, and my friend who knew a bunch of other people there. The other people I met at the event were a mix of people I had never met before, and people I had met maybe once or twice over the past 5 years. In other words, they were all weak ties.

But remember that weak ties facilitate a transmission of information because they operate in different environments than I do.

Here’s how that transmission worked.

By being at that conference, I got to meet and talk to weak ties about their industry. About “their world”. I could then take this information and cross-contextually apply it to “my world”. If we chunk up, while I learned a lot about a different industry, it could equally have been about a different geographic region or something else altogether.

More than that, I was also exposed to the frame and scale of reference of my weak ties. It turns out, even though our industries are somewhat related, my scale of reference for how things worked on the Internet was VERY different from that of the marketers that I met there. It is always good to know what is going on out there - especially because spending a lot of time focused on one particular topic tends to create myopia.

Another way to think about it is that you will eventually meet weak ties who are at the cutting-edge in their industry - and an exchange of information can take place if you are at the cutting-edge in your industry.

For example, we consider ourselves cutting-edge when it comes to productivity at Asian Efficiency. We’re constantly testing and trying new things and seeing what works. On the other hand, affiliate marketers are on the cutting-edge when it comes to online lead generation - they are doing things that will take mainstream companies years to catch onto. So when I meet someone from another space (a weak tie), an exchange takes place - I convey some cutting-edge data about productivity, they convey some cutting-edge data about their area of expertise.

But while that explains the transmission of new information from weak ties to you, it doesn’t explain the accompanying motivation and productivity levels.

To make sure that you become more productive as a result of this exchange of information however, you have to apply it a bit. It’s all too easy to dismiss what you learn or overhear as “oh, that’s interesting but it doesn’t apply to me”.

What you need to do is to adopt/borrow/steal/adapt the information that you learn. Take the frame of reference of your weak ties and try it on for yourself, and then look at your own life. Take their belief structures, their perspectives, or even their basic business numbers - and apply it to your situation. It will make you rethink a lot of what you are doing.

In my case, doing exactly that has made me rethink a LOT of what we do at Asian Efficiency, and on a more personal level, what I do with my lifestyle and how I live day-to-day.

If I were to break this down into a process, it would look like this:

1. Encounter a weak tie.
2. Learn their frame of reference/perspective.
3. See their ideas.
4. Notice what they consciously repeat a lot and what triggers their reticular activation system (RAS).
5. “Try it on” for yourself. Note that this will happen unconsciously if you are open to the idea.
6. Become more productive as the result of more information, more informed decisions and being able to see your situation (good, bad, blind spots) from another’s perspective.

Taking Action

Actioning this one part of Social Productivity is simple.

• Attend meet ups or conferences or just meet people who are outside your normal social groups every now and then.
• Be open to new ideas and different frames of reference.