6 degrees of Kevin Bacon...

For quite some time now, I've manfully resisted the temptation to join in with the whole 'social networking' phenomenon. Thinking a guy in his mid-thirties is far too old to be 'tweeting' or 'poking' old friends on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, et al.

In fact, it was quite by accident that I first signed up to the 'business' network LinkedIn, back in the Spring of 07. Almost a year went by, and my network had grown to a mighty 6 'connections'. Then, I happened to pause my finger over the delete button one morning a few months ago, when reading an auto-update email from the site - and realised that I had kind of missed the point about just what potential there is to be had in reaching out through cyberspace to make fruitful connections with like minded people across our industry.

So I began to do some homework. Armed with my copy of 'LinkedIn for Dummies' from Amazon.com, I stepped outside of my comfort zone and started inviting...

After just a few short months, my network stands at just under 200 '1st level' connections, each one personally invited, and with a particular interest in CAD & BIM technology within the AEC space. But the amazing thing is that I now have nearly 60,000 people just two connections away and a further 4.5M people one step away from that!

It reminds me of the old college game, '6 degrees of Kevin Bacon', which was based on the theory that any actor or actress can be linked through his or her film roles to the actor Kevin Bacon. This, in turn, was a derivation of the '6 degrees of separation' idea that, if a person is one step away from each person they know and two steps away from each person who is known by one of the people they know, then everyone is an average of six 'steps' away from each person on Earth.

With that thought, it only remains for me to say that, if you have an interest in, or responsibility for, improving CAD & BIM productivity, I extend a warm invitation for you to join my expanding network; http://www.linkedin.com/in/roryvance.

I look forward to 'meeting' you! :)

Rory