The Law of the Few

Gladwell continues to prove his point regarding his thesis that “the possibility that sometimes big changes follow from small events, and sometimes these changes can happen very quickly” (11). He began the book by telling the readers about the hush puppies phenomena and continued to expand is point on how little things make a big difference. He begins to explain to the readers the Rules of Epidemics by introducing us to The Law of the Few which is a separate chapter. In this chapter, he begins with a very interesting point that I never realised of the 80/20 Principle which states that 80% of the work will be done by 20% of the participants. This really surprised as I never realised as this was the case almost most of the time. A historical occurrence is mentioned later in the chapter when Paul Revere, a silversmith, rode across many cities in America and told every city and town that he passed about the British trying to cause problems. This is one of the most historical examples of a word-of-mouth epidemic as a piece of extraordinary news that travelled a long distance in a short period of time. The word-of-mouth continues even in this age today as companies use multimillion-dollar advertising campaigns to get what they need to get across. Gladwell continues to explain that it is an important form of human communication and that it remains very mysterious. Furthermore, he also mentions that the word-of-mouth appeals have become the only kind of persuasion that most people respond to anymore. He continues to explain within the book as Paul Revere’s success of starting this word-of-mouth epidemic was “heavily dependant on the involvement of people with a particular and rare set of social gifts.” (33)
Once Gladwell introduced the chapter to the readers, he got into the different people who help these social epidemics occur. Connectors are the first people mentioned by Gladwell who have an impact on social epidemics. He says connectors are people with a special gift who bring the world together and have a “knack” for making friends and acquaintances. He then mentions the next people who have an impact on social epidemics; they are mavens. Mavens are people who want to “solve other people’s problems, generally by solving his own”. (66) This is very interesting as he also mentioned that it also works the opposite way as these people solve their own emotional problems to help others. Mavens seem to be “information brokers” who like to share and trade information that they know. (69) The last set of people brought up by Gladwell that have an impact on the social epidemics is salesmen. They are charismatic people with powerful negotiation skill. He refers to the businessman Tom Gau and how his traits help him to be a salesman and start a social epidemic of word-of-mouth. There are many interesting facts brought up by Gladwell that allow readers to think about as to who has an impact on the word-of-mouth epidemic. As he states closer to the end of the chapter, “Mavens are data banks. They provide the message. Connectors are social glue: they spread it. Salesmen have the skills to persuade us when we are unconvinced.” (70)