Mavens, Connectors, and Salesman

Inspired by IWMI to read Freakonomics and Marina who is reading The World is Flat, I decided to stop by Barnes and Noble and pick up the business book The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. Surprisingly I find myself with a lot of free time these days, so reading is a nice way to take a break from watching tivo and compulsively checking my email.

I just finished the chapter on Mavens, Connectors, and Salesman, and this book is really fun. It's interesting to hear his theory on how ideas/fads/information are started by Mavens (who are experts in one area) who tell Connectors (who have tons of acquaintances) who tell Salesman (the ones who convince people on the fence to give the fad a try) the Mavens' original message. In the real world, I'm not sure if I fit into any of these categories because I'm definitely not a Maven (no trend-setter here), not a Connector (don't have 100 friends on friendster), and definitely not a Salesman.

However, in the online MBA world, I hope that this blog serves like a Maven for the MBA application process. By posting my experiences on this blog and Clearadmit's Wiki, Connectors like Hella, MBA League, Businessweek, and S2S will help communicate my experiences to anyone interested. The Salesman are the Admissions Consultants who can use this information to help their clients improve their MBA candidacy by drawing upon Maven experiences.