In my Twine feed this morning I had the following interesting post about whether women or men make better networkers. With the recent reasearch into Gamma networking women, I found this very relevant. It looks as though even at a tech conference, women DO make better networkers.
Are Men or Women Better Networkers?
Are men or women better networkers? As my son used to say to every
question when he was around 5, “The answer is ‘Nobody Knows’” (I think
he heard that at a Museum of Science Planetarium show). Of course,
when you’re older, you realize the correct response is “That’s not a
well-formed question.” What I do know is that at last year’s Emerging Technologies Conference @ MIT,
women used their nTAGs to exchange more business cards than men did.
You can also see from the social network diagrams below that women
were more central at the event. nTAGs are being used at this year’s EmTech conference,
and it starts today. I’ll keep you posted on whether this phenomenon
persists across years.
The blue dots in the above diagram are men. Look at those
disconnected doormats in the outer circle. Why did they even both
coming?
The blue dots in the above diagram are women. When you compare the
diagrams, you can see the women are clustered more tightly toward the
center, reflecting their greater centrality at the event. The raw
numbers reveal when you calculate all the “shortest paths” in the
social network between each pair of people at the event, the average
woman was on 772 shortest paths — the average man was on just 487 of
them. Ergo, the women are playing a larger role in connecting the
community. By the way, the above diagrams are based on data collected
by the nTAGs on who standing in front of whom (ostensibly talking) –
they’re not tied to actually exchanging business cards.
~ Erika
Filed under: Social Networking | Tagged: gamma women, social media, social media marketing, Social Networking, social networking women
