Mavens

I wrote earlier about Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point Why We Weblog and about the notion of social epidemics and about how ideas can become viruses and spread like an epidemic.  How exactly does that occur?

According to Gladwell, it's all about people.  Specifically, certain kinds of people including mavens, connectors, and salesmen each of whom play a key role in starting an epidemic.  Gladwell quotes Linda Price, a marketing professor at the University of Nebraska, who defines a maven as "a person who has information on a lot of different products, or prices, or places.  This person likes to initiate discussions with consumers and respond to requests." 

So in fact, ideas germinate among the maven types and the cross pollination happens from there.

So exactly who are these "mavens"?  I think they are the ones that are always looking for the better mousetrap...always looking to improve the quality of performance and results in anything they do.

These people are "knowledge collectors"; actually more like knowledge "pack rats."  I know because I happen to be one.  Any piece of information, whether in a magazine, newspaper, off an internet site, etc. becomes fair game for the knowledge pack rat.

The justification is most always, "it will come in handy someday."  And quite often, it doesn't stop there.  The knowledge pack rat will also attempt to integrate new pieces of knowledge into his/her current knowledge base.

The knowledge maven (a nicer term for the knowledge pack rat) relates to the world through models or "schemas."  Every tidbit of new knowledge just adds to those models, often making them richer and more robust.   Often these models are tested in the real world through application and adjusted as necessary to reflect the realities of putting the knowledge to actual use.   This is consistent with the nature of the knowledge maven...always striving to improve the performance and results of his/her models.

The mavens are the true connoisseurs of information.  And like connoisseurs, they are often sought out for their gift of knowledge; and they are almost always willing to share. 

So there you have it...the idea behind KnowMore Blogging - A weblog created for Business Mavens to share their knowledge, experience, and know-how.

Comments

[Ali Khan]

An excellent article...........

Many Thanks

AK (Accountancy & Business Maven)