The Power of the Few

In his book The Tip­ping Point: How Lit­tle Things Can Make a Big Dif­fer­ence Mal­com Glad­well notes that one of the key fac­tors impor­tant in cre­at­ing a move­ment  (in our lan­guage that =art) is the Power of the The Few. Over and over prod­ucts, peo­ple, actions, and move­ments  move from obscu­rity to pop­u­lar­ity, from low par­rtic­i­pa­tion to celebrity sta­tus as a result of the actions of a few key play­ers. He calls these people…CONNECTORS. Through their net­work of friends, aquain­tances and inate love of col­lect­ing peo­ple the con­nec­tors bring the right peo­ple together. They are the ones who say ” I know Bob who knows Sarah, let me give Bob a call”. In most cases these con­nec­tors main goal is not to be seen as “the go-to” per­son but rather they delight in col­lect­ing people.

As we have talked ear­lier, we are in the early stages of the birth of a new way of doing things and for artists that means being able to build and rely on your net­work or tribe of sup­port­ers and fol­low­ers. The first thing that should be on list in build­ing your net­work is iden­ti­fy­ing the con­nec­tors because they are the ones who cary the most water for you and do so gladly. They are the ones who eas­ily say “I know some­one who would really like your work” and pro­ceed to send not one but sev­eral peo­ple to you at your next show.

Do you know who your con­nec­tors are? What do they look like? Where do they hang out?

Leave a com­ment to let us know.