Six degrees of Vaniah

How many people do you know? Ever stopped to think about it? Is your circle of friends a group of 5 or 50? Then add in your family and work colleagues, what does that come up to?

We've had a very interesting lecture today in Technology and Innovation Strategy. The lecture was on social and business networks and how we create and use them in our everyday and business life, often without even thinking about it. Some people, like Lois Weisberg (do read the article, it's very good) seem to know everybody and others, like the man in the Simon and Garfunkel song, don't seem to know anyone at all.

Companies like LinkedIn have tried (and succeeded) in making money from moving the act of tracking our social networks online and people even blog about it, see Guy Kawasaki's recent blog post.

So even though I've never met either of them, I wonder if I am somehow connected to either Guy Kawasaki or Lois Weisberg? And by how many degrees...?