Business Development

Dunbar's Law, Your Brain, and The Limits of Social Media Marketing

Seth Godin just wrote a really interesting post about the size of one's network, or as he refers to it, the "tribe". The magic number, apparently, is 150 and it's known as Dunbar's Law or Dunbar's Number. Dunbar based this number on the processing power of the human brain -- he theorized that we just don't have the brainpower, as a species, to handle a larger number.

Here's a quote from Seth's post:

Dunbar postulated that the typical human being can only have 150 friends. One hundred fifty people in the tribe. After that, we just aren't cognitively organized to handle and track new people easily. That's why, without external forces, human tribes tend to split in two after they reach this size. It's why WL Gore limits the size of their offices to 150 (when they grow, they build a whole new building)...

Some people online are trying to flout Dunbar's number, to become connected and actual friends with tens of thousands of people at once. And guess what? It doesn't scale. You might be able to stretch to 200 or 400, but no, you can't effectively engage at a tribal level with a thousand people. You get the politician's glassy-eyed gaze or the celebrity's empty stare. And then the nature of the relationship is changed.

I can tell when this happens. I'm guessing you can too.

A few thoughts about this:

• First, I'm willing to bet that the vast, vast majority of professionals, even those who pride themselves on being effective networkers, have nowhere near 150 real contacts. My take on this, which is more than a little biased, is that unless you have that many, you really have no excuse not to work on growing your network. You can do it.

• Second, this concept nicely illustrates the difference between, say, LinkedIn contacts or Facebook friends, and networking contacts. It's very possible to manage thousands of people on Facebook, but the relationship you have with them is broader and shallower than a true networking connection. That doesn't mean it's better or worse, but it does mean that it's a different kind of relationship.

• 150 is about the size of a standard law-school section. Interesting.

Some Lessons in Gratitude

I am spending the week in Wyncote, Pennsylvania, a leafy suburb of Philadelphia.  It’s fall here, the air is cool and the trees are changing color.  As I walked along, my destination was Curtis Arboretum, which was donated to the county by the family that founded and published The Saturday Evening Post.  On the way, I passed several incredible houses.  This area was extremely prosperous a century ago, and many of the houses are enormous, built of stone, and have broad, sweeping lawns.  If these houses were located where I live in California they would be several million dollars each. Here’s an example:

As I stood on the sidewalk contemplating this incredible house, the owner came down the driveway towards me.  A long, long driveway.  She was at least 70 years old.  She was wearing a wool cap and a jacket, was at least 100 pounds overweight, and hobbling slowly down to the end of the driveway to put something in the recycling box with the aid of a cane.  It must have taken her at least two minutes to walk the length of her own driveway.  Given the fact that I was walking along at a pretty good clip listening to music on my headphones, the difference between our conditions really struck me.  I am absolutely sure she would be happy to trade her huge, beautiful house for the ability to just effortlessly walk. I am incredibly lucky.  I’ll bet you are, too.    As I entered the Arboretum, I passed by a plaque set in stone next to a pond.  The plaque listed the names of township residents who had been killed in World War II.  Here is a picture of it:
As you can see, around 71 residents of this small town (population today around 37,000) never came back from the war.  To put that into perspective, it’s equivalent, roughly, to New York City having two 9/11-sized events every year for four years. I am incredibly lucky, and you probably are too.    I spent the rest of the hour on a brisk walk through the Arboretum.  It is incredibly beautiful, in the way that only East Coast parks like this can be.  Huge, open lawns with carefully planted rows of trees in the distance – something like a painting of an English country home. The park, it turned out, was laid out by Frederick Law Olmstead himself, perhaps the most famous landscape architect in history.  It is extraordinarily beautiful, and I got to walk through it for free.  Here's a picture of part of it:
I am incredibly lucky.  I’ll bet you are, too.   

Every once in a while, I think it’s important to be reminded of this.