Most professionals treat “old contacts” like a dusty attic: full of things that might be useful someday. The research says “someday” is today. A landmark study by Daniel Levin, Jorge Walter, and J. Keith Murnighan shows that reconnecting dormant ties — people you once knew well but haven’t engaged in years — often produces more valuable knowledge than your current network. Why? Dormant ties uniquely combine the novelty and efficiency we associate with weak ties and the trust and shared perspective of strong ties. In short: they remember you, but they see different things than you do now.
MIT Sloan Management Review summarized it cleanly: reconnections are easier than ever and commonly outperform active ties for fresh, actionable insight — the old assumption that dormant ties have no value simply doesn’t hold.
The catch isn’t willingness; it’s workflow. People hesitate because they don’t recall where they left off, they worry about awkwardness, or they can’t find the last email/thread. That’s where a lightweight system matters. Below is a three-step Rolodex workflow that turns dormant relationships into a repeatable growth channel in under ten minutes per week.
Step 1 — Start with surfacing the dormant relationships
In Rolodex, open your contacts and sort by “Last team interaction” → Ascending. The top of that list are your dormant relationships—people you once knew well but haven’t touched in a long while. From there, narrow by simple criteria (role, company, city, alumni/ex-employer) to pick 5–10 high-leverage names to revive next. This approach targets the group research shows is especially valuable: previously strong ties gone quiet, which often deliver both novel information and trust when re-engaged.
Step 2 — Quick skim: Rebuild context from Notes & Activity Feed
Click a contact and skim the Activity Feed — your team’s consolidated history of meetings, emails, and notes — then open Notes & Attachments for one minute to refresh the “last state of play.” You’re looking for three bullets:
what you last discussed,
any open loops or decisions,
one relevant detail you can reference (project, milestone, article, event).
This solves the single biggest blocker to reaching out: not remembering enough to avoid an awkward “remind me how we know each other” moment.
It’s also the habit that makes reconnections work: Levin/Walter/Murnighan found that dormant ties deliver efficient, novel information precisely because you can re-enter the relationship with pre-existing trust. The feed gives you the trustful context; the time apart gives you the novelty.
If context is truly thin, add a pinned “Current Truth” note after you reconnect so the next touch is instant.
Step 3 — One relevant nudge: Short, specific, and easy to accept
Send a single-screen message that does three things:
Reconnects with one concrete reference (“We worked together on the 2021 payments rollout — your caching fix saved our launch”).
Offers value that’s naturally aligned with their world today (a quick intro, a resource, a crisp update).
Makes an easy ask (optional): “10 minutes next week?” or “Mind if I connect you with…?”
That’s it. No paragraphs, no attachments. If they reply, log a short note in Rolodex and, if you meet, drop the deck or transcript under Attachments so the whole team has the context.
Why short works: the Sloan piece underscores how much easier reconnection is in modern channels; a small, relevant nudge is often all it takes.
Where this pays off (fast)
Pipeline & partnerships. Dormant sponsors surface “what’s moving” inside new orgs and make
credible intros you can track to Meeting → Outcome in a simple Board. The original study found reconnections deliver both novel information and the trust to act on it quickly.
Hiring & referrals. Ex-colleagues now at target companies are primed for warm referrals; quick reconnections routinely beat cold sourcing. (Rolodex’s reminders and shared history remove the friction.)
Advisory & insight. A single reconnection thread can save weeks of research by pointing you straight to “who actually owns this” or “what really changed.”
Why Rolodex is built for this motion
Rolodex gives you the three ingredients dormant ties demand:
Precision filters to find the right people at the right time.
Activity Feed + Notes & Attachments so you re-enter with context and leave a better trail for your team.
Lightweight follow-through (Keep-in-Touch reminders and, if you escalate, a simple board for intros and meetings) so momentum doesn’t die in the gaps.
Rekindle what you already built. Don’t rebuild from scratch.
Sources & further reading
Levin, Walter, Murnighan (2011), Dormant Ties: The Value of Reconnecting,
Organization Science — reconnections deliver both weak-tie benefits (efficiency, novelty) and strong-tie benefits (trust, shared perspective). GW School of Business+1
MIT Sloan Management Review (2011), The Power of Reconnection — How Dormant Ties Can Surprise You
— practical framing on why reconnections work and why they’re easier than ever. MIT Sloan Management Review
Rutgers Business Insights (2024), summary of follow-on research: reconnections can be even more useful
than an active network for valuable, work-related knowledge.business.rutgers.edu