Flashback: Columbia Professor Blasts Influencer Model†

Brandweek, July 16, 2007 — Influencers. Connectors. Mavens. For years, it has been conventional wisdom that to create a buzz, you have to first target those archetypes to get your word out. The theory, outlined in Malcolm Gladwell's 2000 best-seller The Tipping Point, posits that a minority of the population, some say 15%, have an undue influence over the rest of us. Such influencers tend to have more friends than most and also have an urge to acquire social capital (i.e. exclusive information and products) before everybody else.