Annotated Bibliography- The Law Of The Few.

I have decided to annotate the bibliography of the entire chapter two to ensure all aspects of the chapter are covered.

Fischer, D.H. (1994) Paul Revere's Ride. New York: Oxford University Press.
- This reference explains how Revere is a true connector.  

Feick, L.F. and Price, L.L. (1987) The Market Maven: A diffuser of Marketplace Information. Journal of Marketing. Vol. 51, p83-97.

- Linda Price of University of Nebraska who has pioneered in Maven research interviews Mavens.

Friedman, H. (1980) Understanding and Assessing Nonverbal Expressiveness: The Affective Communication Test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Vol.39 (2), p333-351.

- Howard Friedman, a psychologist of the University of California develops the "Affective Communication Test" which aims to measure the ability to send emotion -contagiousness. Highly persuasive. . Tom Gau, financial planner, scored 116- this score was particularly high considering the highest mark was 117!

Friedman, H. Riggio, H & R. (1981)  Effect of Individual Differences in Nonverbal Expressiveness on Transmission of Emotion. Journal of Nonverbal Behaviour.Vol.6, p96-104.

Granovetter, M. (1995) Getting a Job. Chicago, USA: University of Chicago.

- Mark Granovetter discovers that 56% of technical and professional workers found their job via a personal connection. 18.8% used formal means and only 20% applied directly. 

Hatfield, E. Cocioppo, J.T. and Rapson, R.L. (1994) Emotional Contagion. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

- If you show people pictures of a happy face they will smile, however if you show them a frowning face, they will respond with a frown.  This is known as motor mimicry.  Humans have the power to infect each other with their facial expressions or emotions.

Higie, R.A. Feick, L.F. and Price, L. L. (1987) Types and Amounts of Word-of-Mouth Communications About Retailers. Journal of Retailing. Vol.63 (no.3), p260-278.

- How Mavens shop.

Inman, J.J. McAlister, L. and Hoyer, W.D. (1990) Promotion Signal: Proxy for a Price Cut? Journal of Consumer Research. Vol. 17, p74-81.

- False advertising in supermarkets suggests that the consumer is saving money, when in fact they are not. Mavens recognise that this is false advertising.

Kochen, M. (1989) The Small World Problem. New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corp.
- Six degrees of separation.

Milgram, S. (1967) The Small World Problem. Psychology Today. Vol. 1, p.60-67.
- Using the 6 degrees of separation as a means of discovering how humans are connected, 160 people from Omaha received the name and address of a stockbroker who worked in Boston and lived in Sharon, Massachusetts and their quest was to get their letter there. 

Mullen, B. et al. (1986) Newscasters' facial expressions and voting behaviour of viewers: Can a smile elect a President? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Vol. 51, p291-295.- 

-1984 Presidential election. Pro Reagan ABC anchorman Peter Jennings persuasive news casting. Survey conducted between ABC, NBC and CBS viewers showed ABC viewers voted more towards Reagan. Salesmen example.

Price, L.L. Feick, L.F. and Guskey, A. (1995) Everyday Market Helping Behaviour.Journal of Public Policy and Marketing. Vol.14 (2), p225-266.

- How Mavens shop.

Tjaden, B. Brett Tjaden Project. Available: www.cs.virginia.edu/oracle/.

- The popular parlor game -"Six degrees of Kevin Bacon" game. Brett Tjaden (Uni of Virginia) calculated that anyone who has ever acted can be connected to Bacon in less than 3 steps.  Bacon is the most connected actor.

Werner, C. and Parmlee, P. (1979) Similarity of Activity Preferences Among Friends: Those Who Play Together Stay Together. Social Psychology Quarterly. Vol. 42 (1), p.62-66.
- Reference explains that the result of the experiment showed that 88% of people living in the Dyckman projects in Northern Manhattan have their closest friends in the same building as them. People chose their friends based on their age and race.  University of Utah found people say they make friends with people who have "similar attitudes" when really it is that they live in a close proximity. 

Wells, G.L. and Petty, R.E. (1980) The Effects of Overt Head Movements on Persuasion. Basic and Applied Social Psychology. Vol.1 (3), p219-230.

- Subtle persuasion. Experimental Headphone test whereby students either nod or shake their head - according to what they are being asked.

THEMED MIND MAP - CHAPTER TWO. THE LAW OF THE FEW.

Word of mouth epidemics are one of the more commonly known ways for epidemics to 'tip'.  The world is filled with three types of people: 

- Connectors

- Mavens

- Salesmen

These type of characters are set apart from every other individual because they have a rare set of social gifts.  Their ability to transfer information is what causes epidemics to 'tip'.

I found the particular example about Revere and Dawes fascinating.  It the way Revere went about his word of mouth epidemic that made him successful in transferring the information that ''The British are coming''.

____________________________________________-

It is important to realise that these type of characters can create epidemics to 'tip' in a negative way.

In day to day life, I come across people who fit the criteria of 'salesmen.' They are persuasive individuals who are extremely convincing. 

After reading about Tom Gau, the financial planner, I am reminded about the people in the world who use their charm, energy and enthusiasm as methods to sell. -It is a form of advertising, and I respect that, however we can all fall into traps and end up realising that we made the wrong decision in buying a particular product, holiday....  

I believe that we as individuals need to be aware of those 'salesmen' out in the world today.  We need to be aware of potential negative epidemics, that could possibly occur in the future.

Here is my themed mind map on 'The Law Of The Few'.

Chapters Six and Seven. Casestudies

Within these two chapters, I found the case study of 'Airwalk' skating shoes of particular interest. 

This idea 'tipped' because the name of the shoes was the name given to the skateboarding move in which the skater takes off from a ramp, slips his board out from under his feet, and then takes 1 or 2 long exaggerated strides in the air before landing. - easy really....

..so in turn, skateboarders became devoted to the product.

Here is my mind map of the two chapters:

Chapter Five. The Power of Context - Part Two.

''Rebecca Wells says that what she began to realise as the Ya-Ya epidemic grew was that it wasn't really about her or even her book: It wasn't one epidemic focused on 1 thing.  It was thousands of different epidemics all focused on the groups that had grown up around Ya-Ya. ''I began to realise,'' she said , ''that these women had built their own Ya-Ya relationships, not so much to the book, but to each other.''

This quotation taken directly from the book illustrates how the sale of Rebecca Wells book 'Ya-Ya Sisterhood' benefited women all around the world.  Groups of females formed book clubs and plenty of social experiences derived from that. This epidemic was a definite positive.

Here is my mind map on the chapter:

Chapter Four. The Power Of Context - Part One.

I must admit, this was one of my favourite chapters.

It never occurred to me that focusing on minor crimes could so successfully prevent major crimes from occurring within New York City.  The idea seems simple really, yet extremely effective.  David Gunn's 'Graffiti clean' up between 1984 and 1990 really proved that although it was a time consuming process, it benefited New York City in the long run.

Here is my mind map of this chapter:

Chapter Three. The Stickiness Factor

As a child, I was a great fan of the television programme 'Sesame Street', therefore, I found this chapter of extreme interest.  I found myself identifying with what the author had to say on the topic.

Sesame Street really was a mixture of fantasy and reality, and this was one of the main reasons that it was 'sticky'.

After reading this chapter, I resulted in looking up videos of 'Blues Clues' on you tube as a means to discover how it became 'stickier' than Sesame Street.

Following, is my mind map on this chapter:

Chapter Two. The Law Of The Few.

This chapter explains how three types of people can potentially 'tip' epidemics.

It is amazing to think that through 'word of mouth' ONLY - Paul Revere was able to spread the news that 'the British are coming' to the surrounding area.  Revere's ride is perhaps the most famous historical example of a 'word of mouth' epidemic.

We ALL know a connector -an individual who simply advertises places by 'word of mouth'.  These types of people have a powerful personality and so people tend to take on board their opinion. - Scary really!

Here is my mind map of this chapter:

Chapter One. The Three Rules of Epidemics.

The first chapter acts as an introductory chapter for the rest of the book.

Here is my mind map of the chapter.

The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell

To my surprise, I enjoyed reading this particular book over the past few weeks.  I found it incredibly interesting, and at first - I had no idea why!  When I properly thought about why this book appealed to me I realised that it was because it exceptionally explained how tipping points occur in society.

I have realised that epidemics don't have to be a type of disease, nor do they need to be negative.  Epidemics can be applied to society, and they can even be a good thing, for example- the reduction of crime in New York City in the 1990's.  It was through processes such a 'the broken windows theory' and the 'arresting of fare-beaters'  that crime within the subways of New York was controlled, and later resolved.  Despite graffiti and fare-beating being classified as 'minor' crimes, it were these crimes that caused the 'knock on effect' of crime.  When one person was seen not paying for the subway, the rest of the population followed, because the act was deemed acceptable. 

I gained a lot of information from all the chapters in the book, so I decided that I would produce individual mind maps of each chapter.

Here is my mind map for the introduction:

JUTEOPOLIS: FINAL PRESENTATION DAY.

JUTEOPOLIS.

BRIEF: To develop a design response within the context of an exciting contemporary exhibition to explore the theme of JUTEOPOLIS.

 The following six sheets illustrate the research, development and final ideas that took place within our group project.  In our 5 week project we worked with two real clients, Brian Kelly who is the education and community outreach officer at Verdant Works and Louise Richie, who is an artist and a member of the Society of Scottish Artists (SSA), who undertook an expressive art project on the theme of JUTEOPOLIS.

As a group we had the freedom to decide what form the exhibition would take.  We felt that the exhibition should be a place of learning, consequently, we decided to base our exhibition on former jute worker Lily Thompson.

After constructing our emotive object, we realised that the cultivation of jute resembles a journey - just like the life of Lily Thompson in the jute mills.  Therefore we thought we would investigate and display 6 main stages of Lily's life within the exhibition space.

Within the space, there are 6 curved stations.  Each station displays personal information about Lily, as well as a section of Dundee's history at that particular time.  Both elements of information combine to produce 6 individual learning spaces.

As the audience who enter the exhibition space determine the lighting within the space using the 'sensacell lighting tiles' on the ground, this gives them a sense of 'power' within the space and they too can make their own Journey throughout the exhibition.

There is a focus on lighting within the space.  The entire room is blackened out, however there is light emerging from 3 sources:

one - lighting will emerge from underneath the water, illustrating Dundee's history

two - lighting within the centre space will shine through the jute

three- there is light created by the audience as they make their personal journey throughout the exhibition on the 'sensacell tiles'.  They have been given the power to control the intensity of light in the space at any given time.

The Blue Carpet project uses innovative tiling to define a public space outside the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle. Designed by Thomas Heatherwick

It's not often we get inspired by the design of benches in the street, infact, most public 'furniture' is average, unexciting and unimpressive. However, at the weekend I stumbled across an area outside the Laing Art Gallery in central Newcastle with quite a difference. The design is unique, and makes you look.  How it works is that the tiles from the ground are 'peeled' up, to form benches..simple really, but yet effective. I plan to try and incorporate the 'peeling' of material from the ground into other interesting shapes/furniture, within the Exhibition design project I have going on in Uni currently.