“The Force behind Trends”
Why did the New York City crime rate drop so dramatically in 1990s? Why did fax machines become popular so quickly in the United State? Author Malcolm Gladwell has explored the forces behind the sudden, swift transmission of ideas that change society, and he has found that new ideas and trends originate with three types of exceptional people : mavens, connector, and salesman.
In his book, The Tipping Point : How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Gladwell profiles the three groups to explain how word-of-mouth epidemics take hold in society.
Gladwell says maven, the type of people who have specialize knowledge, are the first group of exceptional people responsible for trends. If you examine why you make certain decision, such as where to shop or dine or what movie to see, he says, you find that you are relying on the same person -a maven- over and over again for recommendations.
Connector, are the kind of people who know everybody, the handful of individuals in any social group who have extraordinary social ties. Gladwell explains that connectors are incredibly powerful in generating word-of-mouth epidemics because if they like something, they can spread information about it five or six times, much farther than the average person.
Once a new idea has spread, Gladwell attributes the ability to persuade people to adopt it to the third group, the salesman. Salesman have an extraordinary natural ability to win people over, to get hold on an idea and make it go a long way, he says.
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Now the question is where is our position?
Is it important to define our position in those three criterion above?
In my opinion, it is important to know our strength whether you are a maven, a connector, or a salesman. If you have all of them in your personality, please peruse yourself one more time. You must have the most dominant one.
This is important for the one who do not want to be like other common people.^__^
Actually everybody is special. They came to this earth with their own function. For instance, around 1775 in Boston, there was a man named Paul Revere. He was phenomenal for US citizen in the way through snatch independence from the British colonization. He was phenomenal because of his bravery to ride from Boston to Lexington, to warn citizen about the British battle plans to Boston.
The question is, why Revere was successfully warn people about the British battle plan. Why did people trust in his warn? What was the secret behind his success?
Gladwell said that new idea catch on partly because socially connected people spread them. Revere was a connector who knows everybody. He has a wide network of social connections- the type you always go for the latest news. In fact, Revere learned about the British attack from several sources. After so many rumors came his way, naturally he jumped on his horse and took his legendary ride to Lexington. And the rest history, literally. His news gave the colonial army time to organize and meet the enemy with fierce resistance.
So what is the answer of his success? Revere lived his entire life in Boston, so he knew everybody. He had a social network from childhood, from business, from community work. He made friends among his business patrons. He owned a lot of shop: silver shop, printing press, an arms factory, and dentistry. He belonged to almost every club and organization around. So Revere connected with people everywhere and he was very popular.
As you see, Revere had build such a wide circle of friends that he was the ideal person to spread a piece of critical news as far as possible. Consequently, Revere’s tale, his word-of-mouth epidemic, was a legend that we can take the pith from it.
I would rather be the Connector too..^__^ how about you?
