I’m a fan of the book The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. It was an interesting and hopeful book about how our culture can change on a dime. A tipping point is defined as “the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point”. Gladwell points out that it doesn’t always take a mass of people to make important changes in society. Sometimes just a few key people start an epidemic and turn history on its ear. He calls this the Law of the Few. He follows up with examples. One example is Paul Revere, who, with his midnight ride, changed a revolution. The people listened to Revere, instead of just thinking he was crazy, because he already had a relationship with those people. He was a connector, a person with the rare gift of connecting with people. Another type of key person is a salesman. Salesmen are a people who can convince you to agree with their concept or cause.
A third type of person is a maven. A maven is a person who likes to collect information and wants to share it with others. A maven is the person you think of to call with that puzzling question. There is a difference in a maven and a salesman. A maven is not necessarily interested in convincing you to believe the information, as is a saleman. The maven has the information, loves the information, and loves to share the information. A salesman is expert in convincing other people to agree.
I’m a maven or a wanna-be maven. While Gladwell gives mavens credit for being great experts, I will not put myself in that category, but I do love my information. And I can’t help myself; I have to share it. I get brief glimpses that some people are not as interested in my information as I am. Ha! But they have still listened to me. My apologies and thanks to them. Some people love to listen to my information. But it doesn’t matter to me either way. I love to collect and share my information no matter what the reaction. I love to share info about books, recipes, experiences, restaurants. Information is fun. Information sharing makes me feel joyful.
Why does the book The Tipping Point give me hope? History is full of examples where critical people in critical places make change happen. Systems can change and they can change because of the input of these key people. Schools can change, governments can change, and organizations can change. In spite of the pessimism of our culture (or is it the pessimism of our media) these days, I have hope. I have no expectation that I will impact change in a huge system. However, maybe I can be an expert at my job, at my church and with my friends and encourage change in a positive direction. Maybe I can be a little voice who says, “It’s possible that we could…” If you’re a salesman or a connector and think I have some good information, help me. If you think I’m wrong, feel free to ignore.
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