[OT] Job or social resource

Disclaimer: I have no financial or other interest in LinkedIn.

On the advice of some colleagues, I've started using a service,
http://www.linkedin.com. It's a little hard to describe, but I've both
gotten in touch with old friends and gotten at least one active job lead.

There's a theory that everyone on earth is some N degrees of separation
from everybody else, N usually about 6. LinkedIn takes that principle to
N=4. You register, and then set up connections with people you know. In
turn, that links you indirectly to people they know. It's a distributed
trust model, in that if you want to contact a friend-of-a-friend, the
message goes through your friend, who can choose to forward it or not,
with or without a message. They do up to four degrees of separation.

I think of it as a four-dimensional Rolodex. One colleague described it
as a tool for the times when you think you know someone in a company,
but you don't remember who it is. Others have liked it for getting back
in touch with old friends.

"Howard Berkowitz" wrote in message
...
Disclaimer: I have no financial or other interest in LinkedIn.

On the advice of some colleagues, I've started using a service,
http://www.linkedin.com. It's a little hard to describe, but I've both
gotten in touch with old friends and gotten at least one active job lead.

There's a theory that everyone on earth is some N degrees of separation
from everybody else, N usually about 6. LinkedIn takes that principle to
N=4. You register, and then set up connections with people you know. In
turn, that links you indirectly to people they know. It's a distributed
trust model, in that if you want to contact a friend-of-a-friend, the
message goes through your friend, who can choose to forward it or not,
with or without a message. They do up to four degrees of separation.

I think of it as a four-dimensional Rolodex. One colleague described it
as a tool for the times when you think you know someone in a company,
but you don't remember who it is. Others have liked it for getting back
in touch with old friends.

it's orginally a humorous joke about Paul Erdosh, the mathematician.
what is your Erdosh number was how far you were from someone who
wrote an article with Erdosh. if you knew someone who wrote an article
with Erdosh then your Erdosh number was three. Erdosh was a nice
guy, lived out of a suitcase, partnered articles with everyone, well more
than anyone, almost thousands of people, great mathematician.

how do they keep it at n=4? they allow 4 deep, okay. but if the fourth
person knows someone who knows someone, then is it not n=6
at that point?

darn, there was a good web site which tried to hook someone to a
librarian in manchester so to if it's really n=6. you just give the email
address of anyone and then that person sees if they known someone
in manchester and if it's really n=6.

In article GEfie.4048$Y36.3680@trndny05, "Treeline"
wrote:

"Howard Berkowitz" wrote in message
...
Disclaimer: I have no financial or other interest in LinkedIn.

On the advice of some colleagues, I've started using a service,
http://www.linkedin.com. It's a little hard to describe, but I've both
gotten in touch with old friends and gotten at least one active job
lead.

There's a theory that everyone on earth is some N degrees of separation
from everybody else, N usually about 6. LinkedIn takes that principle
to
N=4. You register, and then set up connections with people you know.
In
turn, that links you indirectly to people they know. It's a distributed
trust model, in that if you want to contact a friend-of-a-friend, the
message goes through your friend, who can choose to forward it or not,
with or without a message. They do up to four degrees of separation.

I think of it as a four-dimensional Rolodex. One colleague described it
as a tool for the times when you think you know someone in a company,
but you don't remember who it is. Others have liked it for getting back
in touch with old friends.

it's orginally a humorous joke about Paul Erdosh, the mathematician.
what is your Erdosh number was how far you were from someone who
wrote an article with Erdosh. if you knew someone who wrote an article
with Erdosh then your Erdosh number was three. Erdosh was a nice
guy, lived out of a suitcase, partnered articles with everyone, well more
than anyone, almost thousands of people, great mathematician.

how do they keep it at n=4? they allow 4 deep, okay. but if the fourth
person knows someone who knows someone, then is it not n=6
at that point?

There are some people, typically recruiters and the like, that will take
requests from anyone. In the example you cite, the fourth person would
have to search manually from their point in the graph; it's the search
engine that only goes four deep.


darn, there was a good web site which tried to hook someone to a
librarian in manchester so to if it's really n=6. you just give the email
address of anyone and then that person sees if they known someone
in manchester and if it's really n=6.