6.6 Degrees of Separation

August 4, 2008 • 9:30 am • POSTED BY stephen penning

I read this Washington Post article over the weekend that covered a study done by Microsoft where they analyzed half of the world’s instant-messaging traffic. What they deduced was that any one person is approximately 6.6 degrees of separation away from anyone on the planet.

Other than the Kevin Bacon exercise I was exposed to this theory in Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point. The post article refers to the small world experiment written about in that book where people in Nebraska and Boston are asked to send a letter through acquaintances to a Boston stockbroker. The results of that experiment are somewhat surprising.

Now that Microsoft has been able to further test the small world theory the power of getting the right message to the single right person is as apparent as ever. We’ve proven this with the much publicized Wilkes University ad campaign. Which now makes me wonder, “How many steps will it take Justin Chung to reach Kevin Bacon?”