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For 20 years, I have worked with researchers in academic settings to help them design, develop and obtain resources to support the research they do. Over those 20 years, I have cultivated relationships and developed partnerships to the benefit of these researchers, sometimes brokering relationships and other times developing partnerships on behalf of others. I am not advancing my own research or research interests. Instead, I am developing my own understanding of what others do with their research and communicating that understanding to other audiences. Knowledge transfer of this sort is somewhat common in academia, and in other sectors such as industry or non-profit organizations, this form of communication might also be referred to as marketing, storytelling, and/or knowledge mobilization.

Within a group, a team, a network, or organization that relies on members being connected to one another, connections can be based on a number of factors but almost always rely on the availability, awareness, and mobility of knowledge or information essential to the group. How does information move within a group or across groups? We are interested in identifying catalyzing actions that occur in group interactions to facilitate the ease of information and knowledge exchange and the establishment of new connections of members in the group. Research suggests that ideas have value to the extent that they can be shared with a new or different audience (Burt, 2004). This research also suggests that individuals who can establish new connections within a group bring competitive advantage to the development of new ideas within that group. In our experience, the purposeful translation of ideas to new audiences reduces serendipitous connections and takes advantage of certain individuals’ natural tendencies to broker these connections.