Today I had to lead a very interesting and long (free and unfinished) discussion about the importance of strong ties and weak ties in a networked organization, especially in the context of communities of practice. "Communities" so it was argued don't build social capital because they mostly comprise of people with strong links. We used the following definition of social capital
Social Capital = The process and conditions of social networking among people and organizations that lead to accomplishing a goal of mutual social benefit, usually characterized by trust, cooperation, involvement in the community, and sharing.
Weak links are important because of their bridging function to other networks, their capability to leverag the social capital of these networks and bring in new ideas at a lower cost (these last words were put aside on a different note paper, as it lead to separate discussions about the cost of maintaining relationships between strong / weak ties, which is high for strong ties and low for weak ties). The question is whether weak ties can, when they bring in these qualities to the community, substantially contribute further to the capability development of the community participants with strong ties.
Suggestion & starting point for the next session: It may be, when strong ties attract weak ties as the community develops.
This happened at 12:26:57 AM or
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