Network Theory Analysis of University Lecture Invitations
One measure of any theory designed to explain “real-world” events is how well the theory predicts phenomena that can be objectively observed. Rigorous analysis using network theory suggests that, frequently, more is learned from individuals with whom weak, rather than strong, ties exist. A common example is the practice among universities of inviting individuals with a high level of special expertise in a particular area to give an on-campus lecture in that area. Consider a university campus, Cornell being an example, to be a selected community of interacting scholars/learners (nodes) with strong ties based on their shared membership in that particular university community. An individual unaffiliated with the particular university has only weak ties with members (nodes of) the university community based on shared interest in his/her area of expertise. However, interaction is sought with the outside expert because he/she has knowledge not fully resident in the university community.
An example of this practice is the George Staller Lecture (https://economics.cornell.edu/george-staller-lecture), an event of the Cornell Department of Economics that features distinguished economics scientists lecturing on topics of their special expertise. Another is the Bethe Lecture Series in physics (https://physics.cornell.edu/bethe-lectures), honoring long-time Cornell Faculty member Hans Bethe who received the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physics. These lectures are delivered to the Cornell community by distinguished researchers in Physics. In each of these lecture series, a great deal of important information is imparted to individuals (nodes) in the Cornell community by an individual with only weak ties (based on shared interest) to the Cornell academic community. These are examples of the notion of the “strength of weak ties”. That is, most new information, that is not easily accessible, is discovered via interaction with people who only share weak ties with one another. This is because most information that can be shared with groups of people where there are only strong ties between them has already been shared. So, each member of a strongly connected group tends to have most of the information that the rest of the group has. It is the individuals with whom members of the group have weak ties that help bring new information to the entire group (this is the “strength” of weak ties).
Links to sources:
https://economics.cornell.edu/george-staller-lecture
https://physics.cornell.edu/bethe-lectures