Mavens, Connectors and Salesmen

After reading the summaries of chapter two from The Tipping Point, by Malcom Gladwell, I came to understand the different roles of mavens, connectors and salesmen in the process of the spread of information and trends. Mavens are people who accumulate knowledge and are recognized by others as having truthful and reliable information. When I think about Mavens in my own personal network, I think about a literacy interventionist at my school. She has been at my school for eight years and has a background in special education. She has also been trained in Reading Recovery and LLI approaches to literacy intervention. Whenever I have questions about the validity of approaches, I can go to her and know that she has a wealth of knowledge in the area of literacy intervention. When I think about connectors, I think about our tech team. We have an incredible IT guy who works hard to support our school community. He is always seeking out opportunities to share out the wonderful things happening at our school. Alongside him, we have two enrichment teachers who work hard to bring the school community together through tech integration. In the fall they worked with students and teachers to create a school-wide dance video that featured every student and teacher in our school. The video was shared at our welcome back assembly and brought the whole school together through shared laughter. This is just one example of how hard our tech team works to bring the community together and create a sense of belonging among participants. Lastly, there’s the salesman. The salesman is the person who can persuade others to adopt a certain point of view. Persuasion is often achieved through non-verbal facial movements/expressions and body language. When I think about a salesman within my network, I think about our school guidance counselor who has been working really hard to get teachers to see the value in Restorative Practices. Most of the training has been done within school-level professional development settings and it’s not hard for teachers to feel like they have more pressing work to complete in their classrooms. However, the way that our counselor has presented the data on how Restorative Practices can change school climate and has also followed through with modeling circles within faculty groups has definitely increased buy-in and purpose.

When I thought that I wanted to enter the field of business when I was 16 years old, my dad was well-connected to the creative team at Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. He was able to connect me with the creative marketing director, illustrators and people working on advertisement campaigns. I met with people in various roles and discussed future opportunities. When I was interested in attending the University of Vermont Business School, I met with a family friend and professor within the college to discuss ambitions and pathways. When I was in high school, I had many family members and educators wrapping around me and acting as connectors to mavens to help guide me in finding my path. Flash forward ten years and I applied to eight Ph.D. programs across the country. My anxiety was heightened by the lack of connectors and mavens that I had to rely on in finding out information and making critical connections to schools and professors. I desperately wished I was better connected to professors outside of the UVM community and/or students across the U.S. with information about various programs and schools. Connectors and mavens help to situate people within their current environments and help them to reach beyond. They are critical to one’s personal success and comfort in getting out of their comfort zone to strive for new things. 

I am excited for the opportunity to explore Twitter and other social media platforms to expand my personal learning network. I can see the value in Twitter in helping me reach out to people in places that are beyond my physical world at this moment in time. 

I believe my primary roles are maven and salesperson - which isn’t entirely surprising as a teacher. I take on the role of a maven when I teach students, mentor my co-teacher and take on the role of a knowledgeable educator within team, school-wide and district meetings - aimed at bettering the student experience and educational outcomes. I act as a salesman to parents, administrators and students. I feel as though it is my job to sell the students on content and administrators and parents on instructional choices.