Ken Auletta, in the February 12, 2007 New Yorker, describes ubiquitous public relations man Howard Rubenstein (apparently the man doing the talking for the bland, mild George Steinbrenner of the past few years) as wielding power through a "special talent for bringing his clients together for their mutual benefit." In Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, Rubenstein would be described as the ultimate network connector.
This got me thinking about my worksite and my notion of site power, the collective power of a geographical location in a company. In that blog posting, I separated traditional sources of individual power from collective sources of power. I assumed that a site's network was just the sum (or the union, to get technical) of everyone's personal networks.
However, that does not seem to go far enough. The posting identified information sharing as a vital determinant of site power. So how should one go about maximizing site power given individual networks? Here is what I am thinking of doing:
- Make a map of everyone's personal networks.
- Publish the map to maximize knowledge and use of the networks.
- Identify weak links in the map with limited access to key external power-brokers.
- Cultivate new relationships to strengthen these links.

