Is our small world really that small?

You may have heard of Kevin Bacon Game or Six degrees of Kevin Bacon. It's based on Small world phenomenon found and theorized in 1960s by a pychologist, Stanley Milgram.

As popular as it may, this small world hypothesis could have been wrong. This guy is saying that Milgram didn't have enough evidence to support his hypothesis. (See: Six Degrees of Separation: An Urban Myth?)

Although arguing something based on a few personal experiences is nonsensical, I really felt that my world is really small for the reason pointed out in the article above; educated people gather in a small circle, which gives them an impression that the world is smaller than it really is.

At a press conference, I approached a guy, whom I was certain that I had met about 13 years ago. He's a graduate of Waseda University like me and we drank some beer together at a small meeting. I remember him saying that he would start working for a well-known publishing company.

I hadn't met him since that occasion, but when he spoke and said his name at another conference, I suddenly recognized his face. We both wound up with a very similar occupation.

That's not all. I googled his name and found that both of our web pages are linked from the same page, where there are only 4 links. I found his name next to mine, meaning that he once was an active member of Mensa, a world-wide organization only puzzle-addicts can join. Mensa Japan is a really small group and we could have met at one of the Mensa meetings.

So, after the conference, I stroke up a conversation with him and said that we had met once before. He didn't seem to remember me. I told him about the Mensa and some names from Mensa Japan, and yes, we could have met if he hadn't stopped going to them on a regular basis.

What a small world, huh? But, come to think of it, we both graduated from the same University almost at the same time, and the reason we met 13 years ago was because we both were fascinated by computer technologies. It's not because our world is small but rather because I live in a small world.

Funny thing is that even though he didn't recognize my face, he knew my name. There's somebody in his company who says to him that I am a very good writer and he should pay attention to my ariticles. There's somebody that I don't know who appreciate me for what do! I was just ecstatic!!

I lost confidence with my job years ago. I felt like I was useless and indeed, for the last 3 years or so, I didn't do much, thinking about the next step. Our industry didn't seem to have a rosy future. Neither did I. All of a sudden, we were put aside from the rest of the world. That's how I felt when working for a paper magazine. Nobody wanted to get IT information from magazines any longer. PC has become a comodity and nobody wants to learn about it, they just want to use it for web browsing and emailing, or whatever.

Actually, the weekly PC magazine I had worked for for the last 3 years was selling well. It still boasts a circulation of around 200,000, which is pretty good for a PC magazine in Japan. Yet, the problem for me was the magazine is rather boring. Articles are short, shallow and stupid.

I learnt how to layout pages in order to make an article more apealing, easy to digest; ideally, no more than 3 seconds to read one page. There are certain rules, techniques and skills required to creat a good page for a weekly magazine.

To learn those kind of things was a good experience, however, my expertise on computer was almost useless. My experience of writing, interviewing meant nothing. On a late friday night, then my boss said to me, ``Look, you have been doing this job for like 10 years. It's a shame that you can't do this easy task''. He was really really bossy and threw my plans away again and again.

I know that I have a negative personality that when accused of something, I tend to admit that, at least I would try to find my short-falls. I was really devasted when the bastard boss made that remark. He wasn't right since what I had been doing was not to make a stupid page for a weekly magazine. I was good at understanding cutting-edge new technologies and writing about them, but not good at page layout. I was a writer, not an page layout guy.

Looking back, he should have given me time to learn. In fact, I think he was the worst boss I had ever had. He was supposed to encourage me, not discourage. There's a reason, I think, for that, though. Once he was transferred to a monthly magazine that I was working for, which was a very technical magazine and all staff members were techy writers. The bastard boss could not write a line since he's not a tech-savvy. I sympathyzed him since he can't write anything interesting. Jokes and wits are banal at best. Then, he ended up sleeping at the desk everyday, compaining that he would quit the company. So, at that magazine, I was good and he wasn't. He was pushed to the verge of nervous breakdown. Therefore, he had a good reason to take a revenge at me when we both got transfered to the weekly magazine, which he had been working for for ages.

Anyways, I had not been confident in what I do for quite some time. Then, somebody in my new office appreciated my article and gave me an in-house award. And then, somebody from a competing company knew me as a good technical writer. Since I joined the new office, page views have been going up on a weekly basis. Things are getting better.

This is why I feel like I am back in MY pool.

Wow, I have never written this much in English. Hope it makes some sense. It's good that my Japanese speaking collegues and friends wouldn't read this. I can't write things like this for my Japanese blog.