1.Connectors are people who know a lot of people.They also see things in people that the person themselves does not even see.Mavens are people who like to accumulate knowledge, but they don’t like to persuade people to do something.Often times they are vigilantes.Salesmen are people who can persuade someone to think a certain way.
2.Small World problems are limited in incentive and motivation.Examples of these things would be emails and internet.They are things that make the world seem small.
3.“Six degrees of separation” is the concept that a very small number of people are connected to everyone else in a few simple steps, and everyone else is linked to the entire world through those special people.
4.Someone who knows lots of people would be considered a connector.These people seem to be persuasive and have an intuitive spirit about the people that surround them.
5.Very interesting test.
6.We need connectors in society otherwise we would walk around lost; someone has to take the initiative to be the leader to get things done.
7.“The strength of weak ties” means that someone is has a friendly but casual acquaintance or several acquaintances.
8.Paul Revere’s ride was a success because he was a connector and maven and wanted to help people, thus making his cries believable and “followable”.William Dawes was just not as convincing in his actions and didn’t really have the spirit that he wanted to help.
9.A maven would have to be my mother-in-law.She is the ultimate in trying to get the best deal and when she does she ALWAYS wants others to reap in her rewards…making phone calls, saving coupons, or letting you know when she finds something in the grocery store—BUT she never wants to be pushy about it.My mom would be the ideal connector.She goes through spurts of things that she feels are good deals…when I was in college it was socks.It seemed as though every store in Denver had a deal on socks and my mom never passed that up.Often times you would have to buy 10 pairs of funky colored socks to get the savings, but she didn’t mind.She would keep them in bags in her closet and bring them out at birthdays, Christmas, Easter, Valentines, St. Patrick’s day, any occasion that would warrant a nice pair of socks.Another connector in by surrounding would have to be a well respected lady from our community, Polly Johnson.This woman is just incredible and it never fails she can ALWAYS find the best in people.She has an air about her that attracts people in her direction and partly because she makes everyone feel like they are important and have something great to give to the community.
10.Relying on word-of-mouth for me is very important.Just this week I had a friend suggest a book called Heaven is For Real and I can’t wait to get my hands on it.In a friendly conversation we were talking about how I need to have more faith in my faith these days, this is when she suggested that I read this book that will have a life changing experience for me.The same holds true for restaurants, especially in our area where there are not a great deal of eating out venues.As a society we want to get the best and having that word of mouth testimony of the quality of something allows us to experience more things.
11.Mavens were the catalysts for Hush Puppies because they wanted to get the word out that this show was something that was good for the people, comfortable and cost effective.
12.I honestly believe that the positives out-weigh the negatives in this case.The positives would be that you would be wanting to help others out and that you would be finding the best deal in every situation.The negatives would be that you might be considered a hoarder or a bit obsessive compulsive about things.
13.Someone that is a good salesman is energy, enthusiasm, charm, likability, and optimism.
14.The three things that make salesmen so effective is:
a.They realize that little things make just as much difference as big things.
b.They realize that non-verbal cues are as or more important than verbal cues.
c.They also realize that their persuasion is subtle and not forced.
15.Micromovements are the jumps and shifts of ones body and face.
16.If you are a sender then people can connect with what you are trying to say, this in turn would make you good at charades.
17.I would say I am a connector because I try to meet a lot of different people and remember, not to the point that I “collect” acquaintances, but in the fact that I enjoy talking to a lot of different people and learning things that they might have to share with me.Finding the good in someone has been my goal for several years now, this is a concept that I have been hounding into my students, children, and volleyball players—the fact that our job in this life is to find the good in other people because we all have a right to be happy and proud.I am a maven because if I find something that is good I want to share it with other people.A few summers ago I participated in the Colorado Writing Project and it was an incredible teaching and life experience.I wanted my colleagues to experience this program so we all participated in it the next year.Through word-of-mouth they believed me when I told them that this program was going to change their teaching attitude as well as their personal attitude. I am not so much of a salesman, I do have energy and enthusiasm about what I teach and I do try to sell students on the concept that writing and reading are going to be life qualities that will help them out in numerous ways.
18.The trait that I wished I could possess would be that of Paul Revere.I would like to have the charisma that it takes to be a person that people would trust and follow in times of unknowing circumstances.
19.I don’t know that these traits can be acquired.I think we have to have a certain personality that attracts people to you—without changing who you are, I don’t know if that is something that is attainable.
20.There are disadvantages in every circumstance and the case of these three situations, a person always runs the risk of making a choice that is not successful, thus leading the flock into turmoil.But on the other hand, if we don’t take chances we are never going to make something better in a world that is drastically changing.
Chapter 3
1.The “stickiness factor” is a concept that something or someone will stick in your mind and stay with you.
2.To make something “sticky” it has to be age appropriate cognitively and it has to sell and idea or concept.
3.Direct marketing is when the producer is targeting a certain group of people.
4.I thought the “gold box” concept was fascinating.The marketers decided to print a full page ad in Parade magazine and TV Guide.Each ad included a gold box; if the reader found the gold box they could cash it in for a free record.It was a concept that was termed an interactive selling idea and I think we use this concept in our classrooms.We might give certain incentives to students to get them to buy into an idea or concept that we are trying to acquire.I think I would like to incorporate this more into my classroom environment—making my writing and reading environment more interactive, more appealing to the teenagers that I deal with.
5.The producers of the Blues Clues program kept the Sesame Street concept in line but learned from their mistakes.The manipulated the following ideas:
a.Shortened the time from 1 hour to ½ an hour
b.Only had one live character
c.Each episode followed a single story line
d.The show was 2 dimensional, almost like a video game
6.Sesame Street was a show, just like Blue’s Clues that was created to helping ALL children to learn reading and math concepts that would carry throughout their entire lives.They wanted to reach children with this educational philosophy from all walks of life, no matter what circumstances.Sesame Street tried to gear their show to children and adults, having many characters from both age groups.Blue’s Clues wanted to only appeal to the children and therefore had only one live character.Blue’s Clues wanted to focus more on the stickiness factor of getting these math, reading, and critical thinking skills to stick in the minds of the citizens who would one be running this world.To get this to stick they focused on the concept of repetition and following one story line.
7.The distracter tells the child understands what is happening but it does not tell you if the child is paying attention to what they should be.
8.The James Earl Jones effect is a concept that I think holds true for all students K-12 and that is the fact that repetition is key to the learning process and if a concept is layered in a way that when the student watches it again, there is a new layer of meaning, the concept that is being taught is going to start to stick with that child.I find this when I am coaching, but I think I need to adjust the process of which I teach skills and I need to have repetition.I am so concerned about changing things so that I don’t lose their interest, when in fact I just need to add different levels to the concept so that the concept sticks with each repetition that we take.
