Well of course he's on that list too!
It's rather logical to assume that we're going to find on a once-again forwarded
piece of mail a number of names that we found on the original. All of our address
books are comprised of a cross section of the people whom we know, from various
social and professional frameworks. My name is in the address book of a substantial
number of people who deal with educational technologies in Israel, so that if
a number of us receive a particular mailing, and only two or three of us pass
it on to our own lists, I'll still receive a couple of additional copies of that
letter.
But simply because this is so predictable, there's nothing particularly
interesting about it. It's similar to adding "from me as well" to a
mass-mailed seasonal greeting and then clicking on "reply to all".
What's interesting is when we notice how the personal and the professional interact
- when we realize that someone with whom we have a professional relationship turns
out to be a social friend of someone with whom we're close. In a case such as
this, it's no longer "well of course", but instead "who would have
known!". And that's what's interesting.
Go to: The friend of a friend of a friend of
...