Chapter 40. The Value of Networks
You purchase a plane ticket and fly to a new city for the first time. You take a cab to the heart of the city and then realize you're hungry for a bite to eat. You open your laptop and steal wifi, trying to find a restaurant, and realize you've left your laptop power cord at home and will need to find a replacement. You get a call on your cell from your aunt saying that she needs to buy a new digital camera and asks which one should she get, because she's standing in Best Buy right now. You see a new e-mail come in from your boss stating that you're fired.
YOUR NETWORK: THE OLD DAYS
In a bygone era, your network was your family, your neighbors, your coworkers, and a few scattered others. You lived reasonably close to some number of these people, and they knew your comings and goings as intimately as a Facebook news stream. These people knew you when you were a foolish kid, and they knew that you weren't very good at math, but that you were a hard worker. If you needed help with something, you could reach out by mail, by phone, by asking around. It took a while, but usually someone could find something.
YOUR NETWORK: THE NEW DAYS
Several of your "friends" aren't that. They're more like "friend-lies." They agree to be part of your network. You can reach more people than ever before. They're all over the world. They have different roles, different networks of their own. The combined sum of what these people know in the aggregate is exponential. They might ...
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