Page 54 - Complexity Perspective_Neat

characterized by strong ties many of which are informationally
redundant. The bridge person can act as a gatekeeper or broker
and chose to transfer valuable information between groups or
not; or combine the information for their own purposes (e.g.,
entrepreneuriall action).

● Scale-free Networks: The size distribution of nodes in a

network structure always tends to a power law. A Pareto
distribution (the 80/20 rule) and Zipf’s Rank-Size Law of city
size are examples of the power law with a few number of nodes
(in the network case) possessing the bulk of all links. This
distribution is called scale-free because it exists regardless of the
number of nodes in a network. The power law distribution lies at
the heart of the Google search engine with the importance of a

node being measured by the number of links it possesses.

● Small-World Phenomenon: Originated by 1998, Duncan J.
Watts and Steven Strogatz of Cornell University. This
idea showed that, by adding a few random links to a network, the
longest direct path between any two nodes can be dropped from
very long to very short. The research was originally inspired by
Watts' efforts to understand the synchronization of cricket
chirps, which show a high degree of coordination over long
ranges as though the insects are being guided by an invisible

conductor.

The model confirms Granovetter's observation that it is "the
strength of weak ties" that holds together a social network. The
small-world phenomenon is at the root of the famous "six
degrees of separation" idea. This construct works as long as the
people are alive.

Abstraction of the Construct

The basic node-link-node structure of a network represents in abstract
terms an interaction or relationship between two elements. This could
be two people talking, two computers passing bits of information, two
electrical substations transferring electrons, a sick patient passing a
virus to a healthy person.

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