The ABFA dinner last night was a great opportunity to meet friends old and new – I guess you could call it the most perfect form of social network.

A social network is a social structure made of individuals (or organisations) called “nodes,” which are tied (connected) by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige. Last night we saw it all!

Social network analysis views social relationships in terms of network theory consisting of nodes and ties. Nodes are the individual actors within the networks, and ties are the relationships between the actors. The resulting graph-based structures are often very complex. There can be many kinds of ties between the nodes. Research in a number of academic fields has shown that social networks operate on many levels, from families up to the level of nations, and play a critical role in determining the way problems are solved, organisations are run, and the degree to which individuals succeed in achieving their goals.

In its simplest form, a social network is a map of all of the relevant ties between all the nodes being studied. The network can also be used to measure social capital — the value that an individual gets from the social network.

Here’s an interesting exercise between the croissants and the grapefruit juice (does anyone drink grapefruit juice when they are not staying at a hotel?):

Take all of the business cards that you received last night and map all of the relationships from that person – companies they have worked for, the individuals you know from those companies, the people that introduced you to them, the people who were on their table and start to understand the complex web of relationships and connectors that exist.

Then go to LinkedIn and start plugging in the names and add other connections you may know to the mind map. You will be surprised as to what a connector you are – the hub of social capital!