The Connectors ... who secretly run the world by Jeff Howe

This article from Wired explains how connections are made in business, and again emphasizes that who you know can often determine your success rather than what you know (unsettling for an academic). However, this has been true for me twice in the past three days, so I have to agree.

The first time it benefitted me. I was trying to publish a short story, and heard from a poet friend who had recently been published in a literary journal. The journal editor liked my friend a lot and even interviewed him. Well, I dropped his name when I sent in a work of my own for consideration, and voila! the work was accepted for publication. (However, I still don't think it would have been published if it were awful, so I feel you still need a bit of talent and education in order to be published.)

The second time I benefitted a friend, or at least tried to. I teach at Eckerd, and have an acquiantance at USF who'd also like to teach on the campus. I've seen her teach and like her style very much -- enough to give her contact information on who might be interesting in letting her teach on campus as an adjuct, getting her foot in the door. I even told her she could use me as a reference (which, according to this article, is a second-level mode of introduction). I did stop at sending an introductory e-mail to the people who hire teachers there with my friend cc'ed, which is the third level of introduction; I had considered this, but decided it would be too pushy.

So, yes, who you know definitely has an affect on your level of success, although you have to be in a position to achieve that success once you use contacts. I wouldn't have recommended my friend to teach if I hadn't seen her in the classroom before; my writing wouldn't have been accepted if it had been awful.