2nd - Social Network

Reading the book, I was reminded of the experience in the Yonsei Chunchu, the weekly newspaper in Yonsei University, and I thought I could apply this social network theory to the experience.

As an official organization, the Yonsei Chunchu consisted of more than 50 members with 8 departments. The organization, basically, had two network structures; one was within each department, and the other was within the group of members that entered the organization at the same time. The thing was since the whole newspaper was made up of articles that each department was supposed to be in charge of, most communication was done within each department, and therefore, one department didn’t really know what topics the others were going to deal with on the paper before it was published. This discouraged each department from getting good information on its item from others. Of course, there was a little bit of sharing through the second network structure – one within the group of members that entered the organization at the same time. They sometimes talked about their items with and got tips from each other.

When I served as the Chief Editor, I decided to make the unofficial sharing (networking) officially by initiating official sharing items meeting on the beginning of weeks, with expectation that it would allow us to communicate with each other effectively. As a result, it turned out quite effective, especially regarding to “sharing” information, even though each department couldn’t always get useful tips. What I realized, additionally, while getting through this experiment, unofficial networking is still important and useful, because someone would rather give tips others personally than officially. And another reason that I got was some tips should be dealt with privately.

To wrap up my recall, I hope to apply this social network theory to next chance more professionally.