In a recent issue of Forbes, the meaning of networks was probed and articles were selected covering four different sectors: network breakthroughs, lifestyle, technology, and community. In the community division of networks, an article titled A Small Circle of Friends by Virginia Postrel discusses a particular type of network, the self-help group. The workings of a self-help group incorporate several ideas that have been covered in our networks class.

A self-help group can be a group for those seeking employment, those that have a similar illness, those with problems such as alcoholism. The general thread connecting all these self-help groups is that they have a unified objective. This type of choice of grouping comes from the idea of homophily, which means that people are more likely to have a social network link to others who have similarities. Similarities could be based on a number of different factors such as geography, occupation, religion, age, opinions, interests, health, and social status.

These groups face several questions that resemble those discussed in class: does requiring too many similar characteristics to determine groups seem to make everyone far from everyone else, and how broad should the characteristics be. Self-help networks need to think about how exclusive the groups can be to achieve its goals and at the same time sustain participation. Once groups are formed, they will exhibit behavior of forming clusters and bridges. The author mentions a “bliss point” where the group must be open enough for new ideas, but also tight enough to foster intimacy among members.

Some self help groups contain people considered as “hubs” with similar definition to a web hub, directing users to authorities as discussed in class. In the case of immigration, hubs are people who have strong connections to the motherland and can pick new migrants and refer them to jobs. The “hub” then receives a score based on how the employer likes the recommendation and therefore adds to the score of the entire network. This is equivalent to employers believing certain ethnic groups make better employees than others.

Not all self-help groups will grow stronger with time. Some will start to disintegrate, but what causes the difference? For some groups, once people have reached a goal, they may leave. Even in choosing when to disintegrate, groups follow the ideas of a cascade where after the first one or two people leave, the rest of the group become comfortable to leave as well. Other groups that don’t survive are those not selective enough, where new members don’t have similarities but join to learn something. This leads one to believe that grouping is more likely to be caused by people who seek out those like themselves, rather than acquiring characteristics of the group after joining for some time.