Is Your Brain Full?

I am constantly amazed by the odd things modern science is studying.  Now I see that evolutionary anthropologist Robin Dunbar…who teaches at Oxford…has figured out through massive research that 147.8 (really) is the number of the average person’s social network of friends as predicted by…average brain size!  Yikes!

So much for having 10,000 close friends on Facebook.

Matt Ridley wrote about this in an article in the Wall Street Journal: How Many Friends Can Your Brain Hold?  This seems to have major implications for our favorite topic.  It seems to say that you need to drop someone off your list to add someone new…assuming you’ve been out there networking away and have reached or even exceeded the magic 147.8.

It also seems to say that you really do need to connect with some really good connectors so you can leverage their connections.  I figure if you have good connections with 147.8 people who each have good connections with 147.8 people…why, you now have 21,844.84 people just one person away.

As I write this I am sitting in the very nice Westin Hotel in the Detroit Airport where a few of us have assembled for an EOSmeeting.  (you remember that I’m one of those strange EOS Implementers who help business leaders run their companies…spectacularly)  I can’t wait to go down to the meeting and decide which person there I’m going to wipe from my brain so I have room for someone I just know I’m going to meet in the plane this evening.

Beat Science Tip:  Prove Professor Dunbar wrong…just keep adding new connections

Professor Dunbar:

On a different not, in a few days I am off to Namibia and Botswana with one night in South Africa.  Let me know if there’s anyone you think I should drop in on while I’m there.  If all goes well, the internet will work and I’ll send a few missives from there.  Last time I was in Botswana, the entire country was cut off from internet and telephone service for a couple of days.  By accident.