I am the least influential person I know. Less so than all of my colleagues, friends and acquaintances. Less so even than my children.

This is on the strength of Klout scores, which rate our importance on social networks on a scale of one to 100. My Klout turns out to be a mere 10 – which compares with an infuriating 68 for my lifelong rival, and to scores of between 40 and 80 for most of my colleagues. Even my youngest son, who knows precious little about the world and has not lived in it for very long, turns out to be more influential than I am.

Until last week I had lived in happy ignorance that such a thing as Klout existed. But then I read something on the Harvard Business Review website that introduced me to the “influence quotient” and argued that Klout scores and similar measures are important and are going to become increasingly used in hiring and promotions. It seems some companies are already specifying that they will hire only people with Klouts of over 40 or so. It’s all rather scary.