Acquaintances vs Friends

The keynote speaker at the SVPI (Social Venture Partners International) conference referenced the Malcolm Gladwell article from 10/4/2010 New Yorker "Small Change":

"Our acquaintances—not our friends—are our greatest source of new ideas and information. High-risk activism is a “strong-tie” [e.g. friends] phenomenon."

So what's the difference between friends and acquaintances? I've blogged about this before (Oct 8, 2009 - Faithful Friend) and it was interesting to see how social networks and the "friends" of Facebook are perceived in Gladwell's article.

In the SVP network, I have acquaintances and friends. The power of SVP combines the many acquaintances (innovation of new ideas and information) with my SVP friends (high-risk activism). It is a philanthropy network model with both powerful components.