A Heads-Up For The Team
WHO SHOULD
KNOW WHOM?
The Hidden Value Inside Your Network
Team, I want to give everyone an early heads-up on something I've been working through.
Why are some people unusually good at connecting the dots
between people in their networks, while most people simply
see a list of contacts?
The more I dig into it, the more interesting it gets.
Most Networking Is Vertical
The Traditional Questions
Who do I know?
Who can help me?
Who can buy from me?
Who can introduce me to someone I need?
Who can help me?
Who can buy from me?
Who can introduce me to someone I need?
I think there is another way of looking at a network: horizontally.
Instead of only looking at the relationship between you and each person you know, you look across your network and ask:
WHO SHOULD
KNOW WHOM?
If you know 500 people, you don't simply have 500 contacts. There are potentially:
124,750
possible pairings among 500 people
Obviously, most are meaningless.
But some aren't.
Some could result in a customer, investment, partnership, job, solution, referral, new company—or simply two people who should have known each other years ago.
Relationship Intelligence™
The ability to recognize those connections is what we're currently calling Relationship Intelligence™.
There is established academic research underneath parts of this idea—weak ties, social capital, structural holes, network brokerage and the concept of tertius iungens, essentially the person who brings others together.
But I think there is a bigger opportunity in putting these ideas together in a practical way.
Can this ability be taught?
Can the economic value it creates for the connector be measured?
Can AI dramatically increase our ability to discover relationships that should exist but don't yet?
From CRM To Relationship Intelligence
Traditional CRM asks:
WHO DO I KNOW?
What if the next generation asks:
WHO SHOULD KNOW WHOM — AND WHY NOW?
The model we're exploring is simple:
AI DISCOVERS.
HUMANS CURATE.
HUMANS CONNECT.
But What's In It For The Connector?
There is also an important economic question we have to answer.
Why should I introduce two people if they receive the benefit?
That's leading us toward another idea we're calling the Connector Dividend™.
The thesis is that people who consistently create valuable connections may accumulate several forms of capital:
TRUST
↓
INFORMATION
↓
RELATIONSHIPS
↓
REPUTATION
↓
ACCESS
↓
OPPORTUNITY
↓
ECONOMIC VALUE
↓
INFORMATION
↓
RELATIONSHIPS
↓
REPUTATION
↓
ACCESS
↓
OPPORTUNITY
↓
ECONOMIC VALUE
Now In Development
WHO SHOULD KNOW WHOM?
The Hidden Value Inside Your Network
A full-length business book exploring Relationship Intelligence™, Horizontal Network Thinking™, the Connector Dividend™, Engineered Serendipity™ and the future of AI-assisted relationship discovery.
Target: approximately 55,000 words / 200–240 pagesThe important thing at this stage is that we're not assuming we're right.
The research needs to challenge the thesis, establish what academia already knows, determine what can actually be taught and measured, and identify what—if anything—is genuinely new.
But I wanted everyone to know where my head is going because I think this could become much bigger than a book.
At the centre of everything is one very simple question:
WHO SHOULD KNOW WHOM?
George