topics: |  psychology | contagion | memetics

ideas spread through "word of mouth" epidemics.  "Ideas and products and
messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do," helped by three pivotal
types of people.  These are Connectors, sociable personalities who bring
people together; Mavens, who like to pass along knowledge; and Salesmen,
adept at persuading the unenlightened.  Paul Revere was able to galvanize the
forces of resistance so effectively in part because he was what Gladwell
calls a "Connector": he knew just about everybody, particularly the
revolutionary leaders in each of the towns that he rode through. But Revere
"wasn't just the man with the biggest Rolodex in colonial Boston," he was
also a "Maven" who gathered extensive information about the British. He knew
what was going on and he knew exactly whom to tell.  Idea of a "critical
mass" or tipping point - "the levels at which the momentum for change becomes
unstoppable.".

some of the examples - e.g.
the dramatic drop in the New York City crime rate in the late 1990s - are not
explainable to other reasons - legalization of abortion as claimed in
Freakonomics.  In general the latter book has more of a science going for
it.

journalist: 87-96 WPost science writer; 96- with New Yorker