Consequential Strangers: The Power of People Who Don't Seem to Matter... But Really Do [Hardcover]

Consequential Strangers is powerful because it resonates with the way more and more of us are living. For instance, I find myself saying, "Some of my best friends are people I've never met." The old hierarchy of people in our lives - family, close friends, neighbors and so on - seems to have changed. Often the people we spend the most time with, and the people who most influence our lives, are what used to be called casual acquaintances.

This book sheds light on a phenomenon many of us are noticing. People (especially those who are unconnected to family) tend to form social ties based on interest. Years ago, I remember getting together with people I know. We'd first decide to meet; then we would decide what to do. Today more and more people first decide what to do and then look for people who share their interests. The authors describe groups such as the Red Hat Society (I wrote a feature article about them when I lived in New Mexico) and the Meet-Up groups, which are very popular here in Seattle.

The book is extremely thought-provoking and insightful. It is well-written and easy to read. I am recommending this book to many people and consider giving it as a gift. I'd raise three points more as a discussion than a critique.

First, because the book's title is somewhat ambiguous, I wasn't sure what to expect. To be honest, I thought we'd learn about how chance encounters with strangers can change our lives. Part of the book does address the topic, but the book's scope is much broader. That's both a strength and a weakness. The authors haven't clarified who's a stranger. Some examples are based on coworker relationships, which deserve a separate analysis. At other times the "strangers" seem to be pretty good friends.

Additionally, like formal social science research, multiple explanations can be proposed for each phenomenon. Did Art Buchwald outlive his doctors' predictions because he had a large network of loose connections or because he had access to meaningful work that offered the ultimate recognition, financial compensation?

Second, I wish the authors had addressed the implications of these changes. For instance, I love the quote from "Judith Snow" on page 121: "Often what we define as health problems are really support problems." My own experience is that consequential strangers are very good for specific, time-limited help: suggestions for doctors, one or two errands, and perhaps a visit or two. Longer-term support networks are not impossible but harder to find.

To take just one example: In one hospital, patients undergoing outpatient surgery must be escorted home by someone other than a cab driver. The hospital used to require the "escort" to remain on the premises during surgery. They lifted this requirement because people couldn't meet it. Only a very close relative would give up a day's work to hang out in a hospital (especially if the surgery got postponed and they had to do it again). Some people hire a service and pay rather than ask a friend to make the sacrifice.

Third, the book doesn't address the dynamics of small town networks, where boundaries overlap. You might see your dentist shopping at the local Wal-Mart or encounter your yard service owner at the local library. For some, these overlapping boundaries forge stronger ties. Others feel isolated. Residents resist offering help because they won't be able to hide and they don't want to get caught up in a commitment.

One thing is certain: We need more discussion of the changing nature of relationships, both in academic research and in published books and articles.

"Consequential Strangers," by journalist Melinda Blau and by psychologist Karen L. Fingerman, PhD, gives us a new term for a phenomenon most of us already know well, I think: the people on the edges of our daily lives, in our outer circles: the Soup Nazi, the shoemaker, the baker, the barista. The book argues that these people are more important to us than many of us, have, perhaps, realized: that intimates - family members - aren't enough to get us through the day. That people on the edges of our lives give us new ideas, new blood: that they impact our success, happiness, and health.

I'm prepared to believe it, but then, I've always thought so; it seems like common sense to me. However, the authors buttress this argument with a great many studies, and Blau has done more than two hundred interviews in furtherance of the idea. The book's accessible, easy to read, but rather repetitive. Blau has written more than 80 magazine pieces and a dozen other books, including the best-selling Secrets of the Baby Whisperer: How to Calm, Connect, and Communicate with Your Baby series. Fingerman, who coined the term "consequential strangers", is the Berner Hanley Professor and Director of Adult Family Research at Purdue University. She's an internationally known scholar who has authored more than 60 articles and chapters.

Funny, years ago I had lunch once with a woman in classes I was taking. I have always believed in telling "consequential strangers" honestly what was on my mind, on the theory it would come back to me, and, as the woman, a black, high achiever, was complaining about her inability to marry, I told her about an article that I'd just read, that said any woman who really wanted to marry could: that she probably already knew the guy; she just hadn't thought of him in that way. Much later, we lunched again, and the woman, having forgotten our previous lunch and conversation, mentioned to me that she'd just married happily, to a guy she'd been friendly with for years. So I gave her a good idea, didn't I?

Consequential strangers are the people with whom we enjoy casual relationships in our neighborhoods, workplaces and third places that can be as vital to our health, wealth, wisdom and well-being as our family and closest friends (or what I like to call speed dial friends). According to a new book by Melinda Blau and Karen Fingerman, "Consequential Strangers: The Power of People Who Don't Seem to Matter ... But Really Do", these networks - or social convoys - of acquaintanceships include people who are often able to open us up to more opportunities than we may fully appreciate. Many of these people on the periphery, our weak ties, are ready, willing and able to connect us with information, jobs and other resources we need to realize our full potential.

The extensively researched and highly accessible book starts out by reviewing Mark Granovetter's seminal study on "The Strength of Weak Ties", first published in the 1973 (and revisited in 1983), which demonstrated that people outside our innermost social circles were the most likely to help us find jobs and mobilize our communities. They continue on with research published in 2003 by Keith Hampton and Barry Wellman on the strength of weak ties abetted by technology in connecting and mobilizing physical communities, "Neighboring in Netville: How the Internet Supports Community and Social Capital in a Wired Suburb", as well as research by Robert Wuthnow ("After the Baby Boomers: How Twenty- and Thirty-Somethings Are Shaping the Future of American Religion") that explores the different kinds of groups outside of our neighborhoods - religious, self-help and activity-oriented - in which consequential strangers seek and provide assistance to each other.

In addition to the academic research reviewed in the book, the authors include a number of other stories highlighting the importance of consequential strangers. For example, Karla Lightfoot, an enthusiastic member of the Ladies Who Launch entrepreneur network, has achieved personal and professional success due, in part, to her delight in the interactions and connections with the people she encounters in a variety of contexts. Lightfoot, who the authors describe as an acquaintanceship artist, extols (and demonstrates) the benefits of being more open to serendipitous opportunities: "It's about sharing whatever you have and people being able to ask for what they need". Graham Spanier, president of Pennsylvania State University (with over 38,000 employees and 80,000 students spanning 24 campuses), spends the first week of the school year living in a freshman dorm in order to expand his network of consequential strangers, noting that breaking down barriers can help leaders become more effective. Sue Ellen Cooper, founder of the Red Hat Society, discovered that assembling a group of consequential strangers to engage in a "small act of rebellion" - wearing purple outfits and red hats to lunch (as shown in photo to the left) - helped unleash "their most carefree, playful selves". This group of women over fifty who gather for "fun, friendship, freedom and fulfillment" has become the world's largest social networking community for women, having grown to 40,000 members in a little over ten years.

The authors cite psychological studies by Marilyn Brewer (who pioneered optimal distinctiveness theory) that differentiate between a personal self that seeks distinction, and a social self that seeks connection and belonging. They note other studies that demonstrate the power and prevalence of social mirrors, and the role of audiences and witnesses in the perception and construction of our complex selves: "We see ourselves in others' eyes". Consequential strangers help us stretch beyond the relatively rigid boxes that the people who have known us the longest - our family and close friends - often put us into. Through interacting with people who do not know us as well, we are more free to experiment with ourselves, and less likely to have our new behaviors and roles reflected back to us by people who object, "But that's not like you!".

Places and groups that offer support for redefining or extending ourselves might be thought of as self-construction zones. This support is, I suspect, a large part of the power of entrepreneur networks - where people are experimenting with new businesses - colleges and universities - where people are experimenting with new fields of learning - and social networking groups - where people are experimenting with new ways of having fun (not that I mean to imply that business, learning and fun are mutually exclusive).

Ralph Waldo Emerson observed that

All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

One corollary may be that every consequential stranger represents a lab partner, and the places we interact with consequential strangers represent living laboratories.

Some of the most productive living laboratories are coffeehouses, prototypical third places where people may be especially receptive to serendipitous encounters with consequential strangers. I first encountered Blau and Fingerman's book in my research into the social aspects of coffeehouses.

The book includes an entire chapter on "Being Spaces": places "where a stranger can become a consequential stranger" that feature "an atmosphere and activities that inspire us to connect". The authors do talk about coffeehouses, of course, but extend the discussion of sociable spaces to include diners, banks, supermarkets, gyms and other physical environments that are seeking to integrate communal and commercial benefits by creating "human watering holes" that promote the "linger longer effect".

Toward the end of the chapter, the authors extend the notion of being spaces from the physical world to the online world. They profile [...], a web site where people can make plans online to connect offline with others based on shared interests and activities. Throughout the book, they make references to online communities and social networking sites. Interestingly, while they make numerous references to Facebook, it seems to me that Twitter is the online platform most conducive to the transformation of strangers into consequential strangers and acquaintances.

In closing I want to note that this is only my second Amazon review. While I have reviewed many books on my blog, Gumption (and the foregoing is an excerpt from a longer review that appears there), I typically only post a review on Amazon when I feel my rating or review deviates from the norm. In this case, I'm surprised that there is a glowing review accompanied by a 3-star rating, and a 1-star review that is complaining about Amazon service, totally unrelated to the content of the book. I hope my rating - if not my review - will help compensate for these others.

Finally, another reviewer took issue with the title. I, too, felt that a more accurate title might have been "Consequential Acquaintances", but suspect that "Consequential Strangers" is more provocative ... and [thus] more likely to pique people's interests.