Social Capital Mentor

I was on an airplane a few days ago reading an article in the February issue of Harvard Business Review (How Social Networks Network Best, by Alex Pentland). Alex is the director of human dynamics research at the MIT Media Lab and has been studying the way teams of business people work together.

Here’s some mildly good news about our digital tools:

A recent MIT study found that in one organization the employees with the most extensive personal digital networks were 7% more productive then their colleagues—so wikis and Web 2.0 tools may indeed improve productivity.

Sometimes I wonder if all the online tools are more of a hindrance than a benefit, so that’s good to hear. But it gets more interesting - much more. Here’s the part that follows (with my emphasis added).

In the same organization, however, the employees with the most cohesive face-to-face networks were 30% more productive. Electronic tools may well be suited to information discovery, but face-to-face communication, an oft-neglected part of the management process, best supports information integration…

Employees with the most cohesive face-to-face networks
were 30% more productive

Thirty percent - that’s huge.

Facebook is great. LinkedIn is great. Twitter, blogging, email, wikis… great, great, great. But remember, face-to-face communication is a critical part of business.

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