hub
a hub is a person or organization who brings together many or diverse ppl, especially if effectively
===
aha: 2 most effective agents are Color of Change (see defectors from USCoC and ALEC) and Wm O'Keefe
===
manhattan inst has 33 TAgs 4 26 cato as 2x?
social network "supernode"
==
http://www.istheory.yorku.ca/socialnetworktheory.htm
The Strength of Weak Ties: A Network Theory Revisited
Author(s): Mark Granovetter
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Sociological Theory, Vol. 1 (1983), pp. 201-233
Published by: Wiley
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/202051 .
Accessed: 30/12/2012 14:06
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
...
The overall social structural picture suggested by this argument
can be seen by considering the situation of some arbitrarily selected
individual-call him Ego. Ego will have a collection of close friends,
most of whom are in touch with one another-a densely knit clump of
social structure. Moreover, Ego will have a collection of acquaintances,
few of whom know one another. Each of these acquaintances, however,
is likely to have close friends in his own right and therefore to be
enmeshed in a closely knit clump of social structure, but one different
from Ego's. The weak tie between Ego and his acquaintance, therefore,
becomes not merely a trivial acquaintance tie but rather a crucial
bridge between the two densely knit clumps of close friends. To the
extent that the assertion of the previous paragraph is correct, these
clumps would not, in fact, be connected to one another at all were it
not for the existence of weak ties (SWT, p. 1363).
It follows, then, that individuals with few weak ties will be
deprived of information from distant parts of the social system and will
be confined to the provincial news and views of their close friends. This
deprivation will not only insulate them from the latest ideas and
fashions but may put them in a disadvantaged position in the labor
market, where advancement can depend, as I have documented else-
where (1974), on knowing about appropriate job openings at just the
right time. Furthermore, such individuals may be difficult to organize
or integrate into political movements of any kind, since membership in
movements or goal-oriented organizations typically results from being
recruited by friends. While members of one or two cliques may be
efficiently recruited, the problem is that, without weak ties, any
momentum generated in this way does not spread beyond the clique.
As a result, most of the population will be untouched.
The macroscopic side of this communications argument is that
social systems lacking in weak ties will be fragmented and incoherent.
New ideas will spread slowly, scientific endeavors will be handicapped,
and subgroups separated by race, ethnicity, geography, or other
characteristics will have difficulty reaching a modus vivendi. These...
SJ:
Ruef at Stanford found that creative ppl have broad network diverse 166 // Ron Burt found innovation in ppl who bridge "structural holes" between tightly knot clusters 167 (U of Chic studying Raytheon! Chapter 7 The Social Capital of Structural Holes Ronald S. Burt
faculty.chicagobooth.edu/ronald.burt/research/files/scsh.pdf
Structural Holes and Good Ideas
www.econ.upf.edu/docs/seminars/burt.pdf
The Network of Global Corporate Control
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0025995
==
A University of Zurich study 'proves' that a small group of companies - mainly banks - wields huge power over the global economy.
The study is the first to look at all 43,060 transnational corporations and the web of ownership between them - and created a 'map' of 1,318 companies at the heart of the global economy.
The study found that 147 companies formed a 'super entity' within this, controlling 40 per cent of its wealth.All own part or all of one another.Most are banks - the top 20 includes Barclays and Goldman Sachs. But the close connections mean that the network could be vulnerable to collapse.
economy
'In effect, less than one per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network,' says James Glattfelder, a complex systems theorist at the Swiss Federal Institute in Zurich, who co-wrote the research, to be published in the journal PLoS One.
Some of the assumptions underlying the study have come in for criticism - such as the idea that ownership equates to control. But the Swiss researchers have no axe to grind: they simply applied mathematical models usually used to model natural systems to the world economy, using data from Orbis 2007, a database listing 37 million companies and investors.
Economists such as John Driffil of the University of London, a macroeconomics expert, told New Scientist that the value of its study wasn't to see who controlled the global economy, but the tight connections between the world's largest companies.
The financial collapse of 2008 showed that such tightly-knit networks can be unstable.
'If one company suffers distress,' Glattfelder says, 'This propagates.'
The research requires more analysis, but it could be used to look for the weaknesses in the network of global wealth, and prevent future financial disaster.
Looking at 'connectedness' also puts paid to conspiracy theories about the world's wealth - companies connect to highly connected companies for business reasons, rather than world domination.
The 'core' of 147 companies also represents too many interests to wield real political power - but it could act 'as one' to defend common interests. Sadly for market reformers, resisting change may be one such common interest.
Click here to read more.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2051008/Does-super-corporation-run-global-economy.html