OK, Gentle Readers, Your Humble Blogger is going to go on about the Tipping Point for a while; you have been warned. If you haven’t read the book, don’t skip the various points; I will be explaining the terms I borrow from Malcolm Gladwell as best I can. And this isn’t meant to be, and I hope won’t turn into, an extended review of the book, but a more complicated essay about Tipping, and how to do it. To hold it together, and to make it a trifle more real, I’ll be talking about Tipping voter turnout. The point of the book, after all, is that something like voter turnout can be affected greatly by a few small pushes in the right places. Not affected a little, not pushed from 30% to 35% (in off years), but Tipped, the way that Atkins tipped, the way that SUVs tipped, the way that bobbed hair tipped.
So, I’ll head through the book, looking at what he describes, and seeing how it might possibly apply to voter turnout. Just to go back a bit, he describes three aspects of Tipping influences: The Law of the Few, The Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context.
The Law of the Few is that a few people have disproportionate influence. In some ways, this is the old 80/20 idea; that in any large office, 20% of the people do 80% of the work. If you want something done, ask a busy person, as that person is likely to actually do it; the 80% who do less will wind up passing it along to a twenty-percenter sooner or later anyway. The Law of the Few goes further than that. It describes three kinds of people who are particularly socially contagious: Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen.
Mavens are, well, mavens. Those people you know who are experts in something. I know a fellow who knows an awful lot about motorcycles; if I want to buy a motorcycle, I want to talk to him first. I’m not the only one; in fact, half my acquaintance would seek his input before purchasing a motorcycle. He may not know many people, or have a way to broadcast his information (or care to), but people will seek out the Motorcycle Maven and ask him if the Yamaha is any good, and will take his word as law, and pass it along. If Yamaha wants to sell me a motorcycle, they'd be better off convincing him than me, as I'll take his advice.
Mr. Gladwell says that Mavens are types, that is, that a few people are Mavens and most people aren’t. I disagree; I think that there is a vast difference in degree, but that many people are mavens about something. If I want to know something about origami, I have a friend who knows quite a bit about it; if I want to know something about knitting, I have a friend who knows quite a bit about that. Neither of those people is obsessive; I suspect neither would consider themselves Mavens by the description above. They both would influence me disproportionately, and well they should. If I’m moving in to a neighborhood, almost anyone who lives in the neighborhood is a Maven, whether they really know a lot or just a little, what they know will be disproportionately influential, just because they know more than I do, and I know it.
My mother was an election maven. She not only knew who was running for which offices in our city, county, and state, she knew who the candidates’ parents were, and who their allies and enemies were. She knew who had run because the party had begged them to, and who had run despite the party begging them not to. She knew who needed help getting signatures on petitions, and who had lots of signatures already.
She also knew her precinct; she walked it door to door, and knew who voted and who didn’t, who would sign candidates’ petitions and who wouldn’t, who would answer the door and who wouldn’t. Until the redistricting, that is, when a nearby district stretched out a gerrymander tentacle to loop around the house, after which not only were most of the people she had contact with outside her precinct but she had to walk further to reach the people who were in her new precinct.
There is probably an election maven in every precinct; there may well be two or three in most of them. I don’t know who mine is. Of course, I’ve only been in the precinct a few weeks, but I suspect most people don’t know their local election maven. If they did, they would be more likely to vote, I think. Is an answer to identify Mavens and get people in touch with them, or to make more Mavens?
Redintegro Iraq,
-Vardibidian.
I consider myself warned; actually, I’m looking forward to it.
Is an answer to identify Mavens and get people in touch with them, or to make more Mavens?
Trick question? Because from your overview here, I suspect the answer has something to do with the Connectors category. Mavens, in my experience, aren’t always the most gregarious people — although political mavens of your mother’s stripe would be an obvious exception. It sounds like she had bits of Maven, Connector, and Salesperson going for her.
Good point about non-gregarious mavens, Dan.
Re Tipping in general: I was going to note that all of this presupposes that society isn’t a mathematically chaotic system; if tiny changes to initial conditions can result unpredictably in gigantic changes to end results, then there’s no use trying to influence anything. But then it occurred to me that people can and do influence public opinion, so maybe we already know it’s not chaotic in that way. Still, I immediately start to get dubious whenever anyone talks about how to influence public opinion, ’cause if there were a surefire method then companies and politicians would be using it.
Anyway. Mavens. I think that you may be sliding past a key point, V, in your discussion of the motorcycle maven (and I think I knew immediately who you meant, btw): a Maven is someone you go to if you want help in forming an opinion. If I already know I’m going to vote, but I’m not sure whether to vote yes or no on Measure 55, and I know someone who’s an expert on bonds (or whom I otherwise trust to think carefully and well about political issues and to have useful information), I might ask their opinion. But if I have no interest in voting in the first place, I’m not going to seek out a Maven and ask whether I should vote; and if a Maven shows up on my doorstep to convince me to vote, I’m likely to resist.
In other words, I think it’s a lot easier for Mavens to influence the opinions of people who already have an interest in the topic than those who don’t.
Hmmm. I suspect that, as with the Motorcycle Maven, the subject of expertise tends to come up rather more often around the Maven than one might expect.
However, I suspect that real Mavens (to the extent that Maven-hood is a description of a Type, as Mr. Gladwell says) tend not to be too gregarious by nature, as Dan says. The information often stays in their brains, and people don’t benefit from it as often as they might.
R.I.,
-V.
real Mavens (to the extent that Maven-hood is a description of a Type, as Mr. Gladwell says) tend not to be too gregarious by nature, as Dan says
I would agree with this. To be really “into” something enough to have “maven-status” takes up a lot of time. For interests that aren’t inherently social (motorcycles), then non-gregarious seems probable, if not by temperment (I’m thinking Myers-Briggs, OCD, and variations like that) then by consequence. But if your natural learnings (in terms of learnign styles are more social, then that sort of Maven might be better known to friends, colleagues, and random passersby.
I’m not managing to say anything insightful, I’m afraind; just trying to bring together Gladwell’s thinking with what little I’ve learned about psychology and development.
I also read this book; about a year ago. I’m delighted to read you thinking and extrapolating from it!