Stanley Milgram had an idea in 1967. The Harvard psychologist had recently been at the University of Paris working with two mathematicians on the mechanics of what they called social networks. Their work argued that the world was much more connected than anyone ever realized, and they wrote a manuscript called Contacts and Influences to tell that story.
The problem was that their research left one big question unresolved: just how connected are we as human beings? It was a question that Milgram couldn’t shake. So, when he came Harvard, he set out on a research adventure to figure out how many degrees of separation exist between any two people in the world, on average. The answer, as it turns out, would come from Omaha, Nebraska.
Milgram’s idea was to test this question with a chain of letters. He got names of 160 people who lived in Omaha, and mailed them each a packet. In the packet was the name and address of a stockbroker who worked in Boston. Each person was instructed to write his or her name on the packet and send it on to a friend or acquaintance who he or she thought would get the packet closer to the stockbroker. For example, if you lived in Omaha and a had a cousin outside Boston, you might send it to her with hopes that she might know somebody who knows the stockbroker.
The idea was that when the packet finally arrived at the stockbroker’s house, Milgram could look at the list of names to establish how closely connected someone from one part of the country was to another person in another part of the country. Milgram found that most of the letters reached the stockbroker in five or six steps.
The six degrees of separation was born that day.
And it’s why I’m writing you today. When we put our ideas, products, paintings, poems, and work into the world, they are distributed using the same dynamics of social networks that Milgram and his colleagues discovered over 50 years ago. The people that we know receive our work firsthand, and if they are so inclined, they share it with the people that they know, and so on. And just like those letters from Omaha, our work can have a much longer reach than our relationships.
It’s incredible, and it’s exactly what happened with Work Songs. I spent my nights and weekends in a trailer in the woods for two years writing some stories about work, some friends came together to help edit the text, design the interior, and paint the cover, and then a factory in Michigan printed a few thousand copies. That was the end of my plan, as the only other move that I had was to write you to say that it was ready to buy.
So, what happened? Your six degrees of connections have done some incredible things. One of you told a friend who runs a bookish email newsletter and they did an interview and featured the book, which then triggered some sales on Amazon to make this book a #1 New Seller in the Workplace Culture category. Another person sent this to a Grammy-winning singer who shared the book on social media, which brought on a wave interest from music lovers across the world who I could have never reached otherwise. There was also a person who connected me with a potential agent for the next book that I'm planning to write.
I’m not here to celebrate these as my achievements, but to thank you for yours. Because without you, this book would just be a pile of boxes in a closet—a good place for a dream to die. But you used your network to tell people about my work, which kept it (and the dream) alive. That’s why human connections and real social networks are more powerful than any algorithm ever will be.
So, here’s hoping that when you bring your next piece of work into this world, the people that you know greet it with a warm embrace and push it to new frontiers. I'll be here ready to do that for you, because there is no boundary that our networks can't break through.
Ever grateful to you my friends,
Matt
P.S. — If you know somebody who I should send the book to, please let me know their name and address and I'll get a signed copy out with the next mail run.
Also, you can use the discount code SMALLWORLD to get the book for half price at the link below.