Ronald Burt, a sociologist at the University of Chicago, has spoken about  “structural holes” inside organisations. For example, a study by Mr Burt inside Raytheon (a defence company) found that not only did those managers with wider social networks come up with the best ideas but also that when people talked to close colleagues about their ideas these ideas tended not to be developed whereas those that went outside work for a discussion tended to get much further. In other words, homogeneity kills creativity at some level whereas serendipity encourages it. This makes perfect sense to me although perhaps someone should tell those individuals frantically widening their social networks on sites such as Facebook or Linked-in because Burt’s observation (and my intuition) says that such networks tend towards more of the same.

Sites such as these are largely predicated upon the belief that the more people who know the better you will perform. But these sites inevitably attract like-minded individuals and information and experience tends to narrow. Mr Burt is not against social networks as far as I can tell, far from it, but be does seem to be saying that one should pursue hybrid networks that have no apparent social structure.