Beyond Sarnoff, Metcalfe and Reed

In a previous post, I discussed the three "laws of networks" and how they relate to an individual's personal deepening process.

I'd like to propose a tweak (we can call this "Goswami's Tweak" ;) ) to the laws. All three laws deal only with a basic definition of a "connection." Yet we know from our own experiences, with circles of friends for example, that there are different strengths of connections in networks. The "thickness" or quality of the connection between two nodes in the network makes a huge difference, not just the number. A further point is that while we might have a connection to a person, it might have a totally negative quality. This notion of thickness and polarity has to be factored into each of the laws.

I am calling out to the Maven mathemeticians out there to do the heavy lifting on the new formulas. Hey, we can even share the glory and create a hyphenated title for the tweak, calling it the "Goswami-SmartMaven Tweak." After all, I'm all about the Power of 2!