New York ? The notion that we wander the planet with no more than six degrees of separation from one another is more than just urbane trivia to Antony Brydon. It’s the basis for his new company.

Brydon heads Visible Path Corp., a startup that mines computer networks to determine who in a company knows whom in the world and how well. Then Visible Path’s software helps Tom ask Dick to introduce him to Harry, hopefully injecting a personal touch into cold sales pitches and other awkward interactions.

Visible Path and a similar startup, Spoke Software Inc., are among dozens of tech companies that after years of hype are now able to efficiently plumb social networks to enhance work and human relations.

But the big question is whether people will reject these technologies as too intrusive.

“Anything that disrupts how we normally interact with each other will not work,” said Valdis Krebs, who developed seminal software 15 years ago that maps interactions in an organization. “We often get the technology right, but we screw up the sociology.”

How it works

The software from Visible Path and Spoke meticulously scans computers to hunt for contact information in electronic calendars and address books. It tallies whom the users have e-mailed and how long it took for the recipients to respond.

Say you’re in sales at XYZ Corp., and you’d like to pitch XYZ’s latest money counter to Bill Gates. In seconds, the software can inform you that sadly, no one in the company knows the Microsoft chairman.

But — and here is the real power of this software — let’s say XYZ’s law firm agreed to have its contacts linked with XYZ’s database. Suddenly, you might find that someone in XYZ’s advertising department is close with an XYZ lawyer who knows the Microsoft founder.

Antony Brydon is president of Visible Path Corp., a company that mines computer networks to determine who in a company knows whom in the world and how well. He is pictured Aug. 1 in his New York office.

You wouldn’t be given those people’s names. But the software would e-mail the ad guy, telling him you’re seeking an introduction to Gates.

The ad guy could decline to help without letting you know he was the one who rejected you. But the software would take note, and possibly downgrade its assessment of your relationship.

“I was actually blown away,” said Jay Ziskrout, chief operating officer of the CMJ Network, a music publisher in New York that has tested the Visible Path software for six months. “Instead of sending a mass e-mail to my whole office — or walking around to everyone saying, ‘Do you know this person? Do you know so-and-so?’ — this is really a great way of doing it.”

Target: Sales force

Spoke and Visible Path expect their first customers to be sales forces eager to make the most of their members’ relationships. But the prospects for their kinds of software engines are much broader.

Intelligence and law enforcement agencies crave tools that help them link suspects. Big company managers could measure employees’ business connections to help decide who should be promoted or let go.

Indeed, though Brydon doesn’t advocate using Visible Path to engineer layoffs, he does suggest that employees might generate a “relationship quotient” that measures their networking prowess.

Spoke is more cautious.

“We’ve been approached by government agencies that, frankly, we’re not going to talk to,” co-founder Chris Tolles said. “We’re not going to give the HR department a layoff tool. This is sales software for sales people.”

For years, consultants have studied interactions within companies to determine how everything from cubicle arrangements to management responsibilities should be adjusted.

But the long-term promise lies in software’s ability to automate that process, and show results in seconds.

Lower-tech personal networking software already fuels degrees-of-separation sites gaining popularity on the Internet such as Friendster and LinkedIn.

“I think something really big is about to unfold here,” said David Gilmour, founder of Tacit Knowledge Systems Inc., which scans corporate networks to determine who knows what, based on the e-mails they write. Tacit’s customers include ChevronTexaco and defense contractor Northrop Grumman.

“Within five years, software that chases around and picks up the bread crumbs you leave behind, and does so for the benefit of you as an individual, will be ubiquitous,” Gilmour said.

Troubles ahead?

Having your files monitored by a computer might seem creepy. That’s why Tacit — which is partially funded by the CIA — employs a model similar to that of Visible Path and Spoke, merely brokering exchanges of otherwise encrypted information between willing parties.

“What I know and who I know depends on who’s asking the question,” Gilmour said.

Boosters fear that an incautious provider could hurt the field with a big breach of privacy. Or maybe a company will tell its workers that some are being let go because the new software has determined they are less productive than they seem.

“So far there hasn’t been the Chernobyl of social network analysis,” said Krebs, whose clients include a church wanting insights about its warring factions. “But believe me, it’s out there.”

Consultants like Krebs also wonder whether such software is truly able to detect nuances in people’s relationships or prompt them to share valuable resources with someone they don’t know well.

“Like crooks keep two sets of books, I think people are going to keep two sets of Outlook files,” Krebs said of the popular e-mail software. “One for Visible Path, one for themselves.”