 Hello everyone, welcome back to this new session. It's a little different from what you've done so far because so far you've focused on the technical aspects of what is ICT, how do I use a mobile phone, how do I figure out it's IMEI number and done lots of exciting technical type exercises. What we'll do today is more human, A and second you know I'm going to be talking about social networking and that in reality has no real ICT element to it. So I'm going to start out by explaining to you what social networking is and then talk about why online social networking is so important and give you some examples of social networking online. Brief introduction, I am Runa Sarkar, I teach economics at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta and I have an interest in sustainability and interest in sustainability in agriculture in a very big way hence my involvement in this agmox and I do believe that ICT especially through the powerful social media can make a huge difference to agriculture and development in India. So that's why I am here and let us go ahead and learn something more on social networking. What do I mean when I say social networks? Now consider yourself, you are here at the centre, what is your identity at home in your family? You may be a parent, you may be a brother, you may be a sister, maybe we have a grandfather or a grandmother among us, you have a particular role in your family, you may be somebody who takes care of the dog, you may be the person involved in buying all the provisions, you may be the main bread earner. So you have different identities and roles in your family not only just your own immediate family also your relatives, someone's uncle, someone's aunt and the process goes on and on right. So you interact with different members in your family, you may do something by calling, you may call somebody and talk, you may write a letter for somebody else and the levels of conversation, the topics of conversation can be quite different. At your workplace you have a set of colleagues. With these people you sometimes sit and discuss how terrible your boss is. At other times you discuss how to improve the efficiency of work. You may do this either by sending emails across to each other or chatting in the lunch room or talking over the phone and often by known verbal signals your boss might pass by and you might just look at the other person signaling something good or bad about your boss's demeanor for that particular day. All of this is very much an aspect of social networking. It's about building these ties and bonds with different people. Obviously the way you react between family and colleagues can be quite different. So we've got to keep that aspect in mind. Similarly in the evening you might decide to go watch a movie with a bunch of friends. So you would then be interacting with this group who are your current friends. You might decide to go and hang out in the bar with them or go to a restaurant together. Again the level of interaction is quite different. Let us consider that you have a huge interest in music. In which case in addition to just your regular friends you might have another group that you interact with who I am calling interest group to here who are related to your music buddies. You might meet up every Saturday and jam till 3 o'clock at night. Another aspect of yourself which is I have an interest. I enjoy music and I enjoy sharing it with like-minded people is then evoked and that's a very human need. Sometimes you might bump into an old friend at the train station and then two old friends may say you know you are now in infosys. Wow that's good to know. You know I am now teaching at a school. Oh and do you remember Radha? Radha is now a real real big shot. You know they profiled her on CNN, IBM the other day. But guess what? Why don't all of us meet up and you talk about the past and you talk about what has gone on and so on. Now that's a complete different set of people that you are going to be interacting with. So now you understand when I am talking about a network I am talking about the fact that you interact with all these different sets of people. When Radha comes and tells you, you know I am really looking for somebody who is going to teach my son the guitar. You are going to say aha I know what to do. I just need to go to my music buddies and ask them. So that's how you start using your social network. Can you see now that a social network essentially is something that all us human beings are born with and we cultivate as we keep growing because this is what keeps us alive. Having this ability to link with people, talk with people and enjoy their company, build our own interests, share our own interests and so on. So let's come to a more technical definition then of a social network. It is a social structure made of individuals or organizations. When it's individuals it's you or me. When it's companies then we call them organizations or NGOs and so on. And these units are referred to as nodes and these nodes are tied together or connected to each other because of a specific type of interdependency. What kind of interdependencies are we talking about? We are talking about friendships. Kinships means relatives. Sometimes the relationship is purely a financial exchange or you are linked together by a dislike. I don't want Australia to win. That's the kind of dislike we are talking about. Relationships or beliefs, knowledge. We have a group of people getting together discussing agricultural issues. Sometimes prestige, I am a member of the Bengal Club. I belong to the Delhi Gymkhana and so on. Social networking then is the grouping of individuals into these specific groups, small rural communities who may talk together who all grow potatoes, work together. They go for a satsang together based on your religious belief. You have a separate group and so on and different neighborhood subdivisions are different social networks. The interesting thing of course is that one of the people in the satsang is also a member of the potato group and that's how the links keep growing. Obviously this is not a new concept. Social networking has existed as long as human civilization has. There is a common concept called the six degrees of separation. Now what that says is that between me and a completely unknown entity at best there are six degrees of separation or six, with six connections I can reach you at best, at most. It could be with less. So I am interacting with one of you and you would say you know I have a teacher and this teacher has married a Bengali from Calcutta and that Bengali from Calcutta knows Mr. Bihani who also lives in South City Garden complex and then I will say oh he does. Guess what? I know Mr. Bihani as well because he lives in my complex. The connections are made and it's been made in just two degrees or three degrees. So similarly the idea is that anyone in the world can be connected by six degrees. So I would know the Prime Minister Narendra Modi across six degrees. I do not know him directly but I know Professor Sehbal Chatopadhyay. Now Professor Sehbal Chatopadhyay knows the Honourable Education Minister. The Honourable Education Minister of course knows the Prime Minister. Bingo! Connection made. So that's the idea of social networks and the Ramsey theorem therefore says that at any party where there are at least six people there would be three people who either know each other or completely are unaware of each other. Again using this idea of the six degrees. It's important to realise that while I may know lots and lots and lots of people usually we maintain about 10 to 20 close relationships at a time. So although there are thousands of acquaintances 10 to 20 is the close relationships I can maintain. And the important thing is the more people I know the more important my network begins. More and more today it's impossible for me to know everything about everything in the world. But if I know different experts in different areas that becomes much much more important. And therefore the value of a network will increase n square when number of participants increase. Theoretically that's the case. In practice while it's not n square it's still a very very high number. The minute you add one more node to your network your network becomes stronger.