I was once asked why the blogosphere is a succesful sphere. Sucessful in terms of knowledge transfer. Now I think the power of weak ties is at work. There is nothing to loose but everything to win. Trust is the only way that make that net work.
Caveat: there might be no existentials at stake.
Almost everything is different when it comes to professional, educational communities. Distrust rules. Knowledge gets routed.
Caveat: it’s almost exlusivley about existentials but still it will not work any longer. Thus speaking with David “Small Pieces” Weinberger we need to accept the reality and the vision of the Web to cope with the requirements of the presence.
Discretion is a major prerequisite for trust. But only as long as we hide our knowledge and experiences. If it is consultable - that means explicit and visible - it is very discrete then. You needn’t even ask. Just take it. I know: a vision.
It is trust, not the presence of strong ties per se that leads to effective knowledge sharing. In fact, the survey also resulted in a somewhat surprising discovery: trust can develop even when there was only infrequent interaction between individuals ([base "]weak ties[per thou]). Essentially, although trust can be created through frequent, ongoing communication, it can also form between people who do not converse with each other on a regular basis. Therefore, it is possible for effective knowledge sharing to occur in both strong-tie and weak-tie relationships as long as competence- and benevolence-based trust exists between the two parties.
Further, when the level of trust remained constant, survey respondents suggested that weak ties actually led to more valuable knowledge than strong ties
(Citation: Trust and knowledge sharing: A critical combination, IBM Institute for Knowledge-Based Organizations 2002, p3)
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