When The Tipping Point was published 15 years ago, it entered the word ‘maven’ into the popular lexicon.  Gladwell defined such a person as hugely knowledgeable about their topic, and therefore an essential component in an idea or product reaching critical mass.

It prompted much self acclamation from people proclaiming themselves to be just such a person.  As you can imagine, most of the claims didn’t have a great deal of basis to them, as indeed do most of the claims we make about ourselves.

With ‘influencers’ as important as they’ve ever been however, it would seem sensible to have some kind of scale to measure ones maven status.  Traditionally we’ve relied on measures such as academic status, book popularity, even social media follower counts.

A recent paper has come up with what the authors believe is a strong and robust test for ‘maven’ status that trumps all existing methods.

Hunting for mavens

Their maven scale was tested out on over 100 participants, using politics as their subject matter of choice.  In addition to taking the test, the participants also answered questions on their political activity and knowledge.

It emerged that those scoring more highly on the scale were usually more active and knowledgeable about politics.

Another important facet of being considered a maven is having other people seek you out for advice.  The authors tested this out in another experiment (with healthcare as the subject this time).

This time participants were asked to judge the other participants on whether that person regularly comes to them for advice and whether that person is a good source of information on health issues themselves.

As expected, the ‘mavens’ had a good number of their peers rate them as a trusted source of advice within that network.

The concept of spreading ideas throughout a network is now well established, whether it’s trying to create something viral online, changing healthcare behaviors within a community or changing how employees behave.

The test may have some useful implications for anyone that’s looking to identify influencers within their community, although the challenge of course will be in getting members to take the test in the first place.

Are you a maven?

The test is freely included in the appenxix of the paper, and includes questions such as:

• When I know something about political issues, I feel it’s important to share this with others

• The people I know often know each other because of me (connector item)
• More often than not, I am able to convince others of my position during an argument (persuader item)
• If someone asked me about a political issue that I was unsure of, I would know how to help them find the answer (political maven item)
• People often seek me out for answers when they have questions about a political issue (political maven item)

Check it out and let me know what you think.