One of the best blog posts I’ve read in a long while is by Adam Rifkin. Adam posts and twitters under the name “I Find Karma”. The post I liked was called “Pandas and Lobsters: Why Google Cannot Build Social Applications…” – and amongst other things drew the analogy of our behaviour on Google being […]

This is the first blog post at my new home of philobrien.com. Hello to former readers of the Personal Network blog – and welcome to new readers. I hope to cover a wider range of topics here. I am especially keen to comment on what is happening in the worlds of old, new and social […]

I’ve always been interested in Mark Granovetter’s theory around the “Strength in Weak Ties.” In the 1970s he asked a group of people about how they had got their job. Of those who found jobs through personal contacts 55.6% reported seeing their contact occasionally (more than once a year, but less than twice a week) […]

There’s a small news story in today’s FT Weekend about BNI (Business Network International) making an award to the UK’s most successful networker. Step forward 36-year-old Simon Johnson, who is a flooring specialist from East Anglia. The story is on the FT website – but you will need to register to get access. The story […]

I’m off to Africa! I’m travelling as a volunteer for the charity Cricket without Boundaries (quite similar to the charity I founded/chair in the UK – Belvoir Castle Cricket Trust). I’m not sure that Uganda’s children are ready for my very limited cricketing skills – but I hope I can help. The last time I […]