Working in Rapid City, SD on a consulting engagement for First Administrators (a partner of Source Allies that is a subsidiary of Wellmark) I was responding to an invitation to get together with colleagues from a former employer, MetLife. Looking at the email addresses of my friends and former coworkers reminded me of the social psychology research done to understand connectedness and social networks.

MetLife used to have a larger IT presence in West Des Moines and had, at one time, about 300 West Des Moines-based employees in total. Most of the MetLife IT staff have moved on to other companies and the MeLife presence for business and IT in WDM is now much smaller. Most of my former coworkers are still in the work force and have jobs here in Central Iowa. A quick read of the email addresses reveal that many of these people are working in IT and/or management roles at companies that include IFMC, Wellmark, Principal, Marsh, Aviva, John Deere Credit, Wells Fargo and (still) MetLife.

One of the facts that was a little surprising was that there were several people at each of those companies. Often the people were clustered by professional area of focus. For example two HR people that I worked with at MetLife are both now at Wellmark. There are several factors that likely had influence on that result; obviously companies have to be hiring when people are looking for work and it also is helpful to know someone at the target company if you want to find appropriate employment opportunities there.

Stanley Milgram is the psychologist most commonly associated with Small World Theory although he is hardly the person who developed the original concept and many psychologists and mathematicians have done work in this field since. The book “Six Degrees: the science of a connected age” by Duncan Watt covers the related theories at a high level (and so does Wikipedia). Milgram is probably better known for his work on Obedience to Authority than for social psychology work on network theory.

So - this leave me stuck in South Dakota when a large group of former coworkers will be gathering tomorrow evening at The Tavern in WDM for drinks. I’m going to miss that opportunity to catch up on how they’re all doing professionally, as well as personally, but I’m reassured to know that when business contracts social networks expand. Quite frankly - my social network is growing while I sit here in the hotel. I guess I’ll relax and look for updates on those people later - using tools like Facebook and LinkedIn. Who knows? Maybe something discussed Thursday will open the door to a new partner (or a new engagement with an existing one) for Source Allies.