Premiere Blog

Seeing how the name of the class is "six degrees" and my blog is doing it to the 6th degree, the Malcolm Gladwell article about Lois Weisberg (link) definitely perked my interest. Who is this women? and how is it possible for her to be the "connector" to so many different social groups? She knows actors, writers, doctors, lawyers, artists, park lovers, politicians, railroad buffs, flea-market aficionados, musicians, and the list goes on. What motivates her to be pretty much a human Facebook?

At the time the article was published, Mrs Weisberg was 74 and she was still meeting new people and trying her hands on new professions. She's an indomitable social networking machine and she reminds me of my grandmother before she had her stroke 10 years ago.

Before her stroke my grandmother was the social hub of the DC Metropolitan area's Chinese community. Still is actually, but just at a lesser capacity, as she is wheelchair bound now. I remember being dragged to dinners with political figures, various charity events, community gatherings, and plays when I was younger. Everyone knew her, whether it was our neighbor or the taiwanese ambassador, they always go out of their way to say hello to my grandmother when they know she's around. I'm always surprise at the amount of people that comes to greet her, and even more surprise at who they are.

I admire people like my grandma and Mrs Weisberg, not for their wealth of acquaintances but for their ability to move among subcultures and niches with ease. They're not only peripherally in different groups, but are well within the heart of every group they're in. They increase the "social capital" to every group they touch, they're the ones that everyone can trust, and they're the one that we should all learn from, so that we can benefit ourselves as well as our own community.

That's it for today, till next time,
Emperor Pete

P.S. Here's a list I found of almost 150 things you can do to increase social capital, the website also explains in detail more about what exactly social capital is. (BetterTogether.org's social capital list)