Life by Polony
The ZA Entrepreneur title no longer reflects my writing. I started the blog in 2021 with five extended essays about taking Easemile, a last-mile delivery concept, through a design thinking course at LaunchLab in Stellenbosch. Writing helps you think; writing some how-to articles helped me process the information I gathered through my interviews.
But, it became boring fast.
What writing about the same recipe and design thinking over and over has taught me is listening is vital.
To who?
In my previous post, Donkeys and Cocktails, I shared my aversion to networking events. Enter Dunbar's number.
Anthropologist Robin Dunbar said we have a limit of 100 to 250 stable relationships. His extensive research started with looking at primates and their social grooming needs, leading him to an average group size of 148 for humans. The following paragraph is from Social Chemistry: Decoding the patterns of human connection, page 37.
"While the average user has several hundred Facebook friends, a massive study of Facebook found that less than 5 percent of users had contacted more than a hundred people through the platform. Similarly, a study of 1.7 million Twitter users found that users maintain between a hundred and two hundred stable relationships. People who spend more time on social media have larger social media networks but do not have larger offline networks; they also do not feel emotionally closer to the people in their network. Social media hasn't expanded the number of friends we have or made us feel closer to them. It has simply changed our ability to keep track of the outermost layer of former acquaintances. It has become our equivalent of Rockefeller's Rolodex." - Marissa King.
The new name, then, is to share my observations in business and life with a lighter tone and make a joke or two along the way.
King splits human networks into conveners, brokers, and expansionists.
Conveners typically prefer smaller networks. Brokers move between circles and expansionists. Self-explanatory have more extensive networks but often fewer quality relationships. For expansionists, expanding and getting to know people takes time, focus, and work. Considering LinkedIn, I need to count the number of cold emails and requests I have sent. It has helped me do research and ask for advice. However, for those people to get into the 150 circle is unlikely.
The chances of building a meaningful relationship are slim, simply because it takes a lot of energy from both sides, no matter the introvert or extrovert personality.
Networking, like suntanning, needs a lot of factor for short-lived vanity, which can end in sunburn.
However, asking for help is different. I remember a Sarie article my grandfather shared with me in high school about self-made men more than fifteen years ago. Bill Gates was one of the interviewees, and when asked for advice, he said most people he asked for help said yes, so ask for help. Still requiring effort from both sides, asking for help makes the connection specific.
If you're a broker who moves between circles, the risk can cause trust issues in convener networks. Transparency is vital when asking others for help. I am not saying sit back, relax, and expect people to do everything for you. Instead, human connection and stable relationships need trust, and trust needs vulnerability. Childhood relationships often share a past of teenage embarrassment and hurt.
My closest circle still consists of men I met as a boy in boarding school. There is nowhere to hide in boarding school, so vulnerability is a given.
Welcome to Life by Polony!
I am excited to share some weird “stuff” with you in this new chapter.
Contact me
quintin@qbincs.com
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