Six Degrees of Separation

Social Networking (as opposed to social Engineering) is a practical concept that we use everyday to find and ultimately use something that we want (well, now Social Engineering looks similar too).

Recent work(Six Degrees of Separation) was inspired by research pioneered in the late 1960s that focused on navigating social networks, explains the author Simsek. In a now famous study by psychologists Milgram and Travers, individuals in Boston and Omaha, Neb., were asked to deliver a letter to a target person in Boston, but via an unconventional route: the message had to be passed through a chain of acquaintances.
The people starting the chain had some basic information about the target individual—including name, age and occupation—and were asked to forward the letter to someone they knew on a first-name basis in an effort to deliver it through as few intermediaries as possible. Of the letters that reached the target, the median number of people in the message-passing chain was a mere six. (Source: http://www.physorg.com/news6386.html)

This is a fascinating find, validated to a great extent when we use sites such as linkedin, orkut and others. If this sounds interesting then check out this interaction:

Worked with Alice at my first job
Got friendly with Alice's husband, Bob
Bob then found me my second job, and I ended up relocating
Passed my resume to Bob when I wanted to return to his city
Bob passed my resume to Charles, who had worked with him during a few earlier jobs
Charles passed my resume to Diana, a director at his current employer
It turned out that Diana remembered me from my first job
Diana passed the resume to Ed, another director
Ed interviewed and hired me (Source: http://www.techrepublic.com/)

Looks interesting? Well then why dont you try it out in personal life and put some method into the madness of maybe finding that elusive friend, that rogue song on the tip of your tongue or go and land that dream job of yours?