What can you do with your connections?

After reading Lois Weisberg’s Six Degrees I started thinking about how I have connections in my life. I found it interesting to think that I am not as far connected, as I would think from someone famous or someone really important. In response to Rebecca’s last post, I found it even more interesting how one of our roommates is so closely connected to Kevin Bacon. To me that seems crazy that someone I know is so closely connected.

Realizing that the whole world is more connected than one would think makes me wonder what can be made out of these connections. So technically, I should be 6 or less degrees away from the president. Does this mean I would be able to come in contact with him some how if I wanted to change something in this country? Maybe not going this extreme but if you think about it, you could potentially find a connection that is not too far off from you and this could be very valuable.

I think that this is definitely most obvious in jobs. If you wanted to get a job with a particular company you just need to ask around in your network and chances are, eventually you will come across someone or someone who knows some one that could set you up with this job. This could be very helpful to people but I feel like people don’t realize the power they could have if they utilize all of their connections. People need to realize that they are not as distant as they think from important and very influential people. The connections exist, but what people need to do is make use of them to be able to benefit.