Steve Collins is a friend of mine and is an enthusiastic evangelist of the business uses of Web 2.0. He’s now guest-blogging over at Web Worker Daily. His first guest spot is on Web 2.0 social networking applications. In it, Steve talks about the connector concept discussed in Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point as follows:
The critical mass of connectedness is closely related to Malcolm Gladwell’s notion of the tipping point. As the number of users and their activity grows, social applications get better, often exponentially so. Ideally the early users of a social application are Gladwell’s “connectors�, and they “yawn� a lot. These people drive uptake and encourage others to join in, increasing connectedness. Soon, the volume of users and the connections between them reaches a point where real value is offered.
I can’t think about connectors without relating them to Seth Godin’s sneezer concept. As a sneezer myself (I get enthusiastic when things work, like Tangler and wagamama) I admire a master-sneezer like Steve.
What is the main difference between connectors and sneezers? Let’s go to the source for definitions. First up, this is how Malcolm Gladwell defines connectors:
What makes someone a Connector? The first–and most obvious–criterion is that Connectors know lots of people. They are the kinds of people who know everyone. All of us know someone like this. But I don’t think that we spend a lot of time thinking about the importance of these kinds of people. I’m not even sure that most of us really believe that the kind of person who knows everyone really knows everyone. But they do.
And this is how Seth Godin defines sneezers:
SNEEZER Some people are more likely to tell their friends about a great new idea. These people are at the heart of the ideavirus. Identifying and courting sneezers is a key success factor for ideamerchants.
I think that the two concepts are closely related - a successful connector will be a better sneezer. I’ll grant that it is possible to be a good sneezer and a poor connector I guess (imagine a totally antisocial but successful blogger if such a person exists). The reality is that most sneezers are connectors - they want to tell people about things, good and bad. I am not sure that sneezers are a subset of connectors - not all connectors are rabid sneezers, and not all sneezers are connectors - no easy Venn diagram there. If you know of anyone researching this at the moment, please let me know.
Do you think sneezers work best when they don’t know they are sneezers? Or better when they do know? Does it shift the integrity balance?
Hmmm….
Hi Mick,
I think that the uber-sneezers (ideavirus ground zero originators) know that they are sneezers, and some of the second-generation do, but afer that, I think that if the story is good enough then it doesn’t need any deliberate effort - if it is the real cow, it spreads itself through un-knowing sneezers. It is not that the latter sneezers are stupid - they have to have a good reason for their sneezing otherwise they wouldn’t bother.
Cheers, Andrew