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1/7/05 Dan Hershey told us last year about The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.  I finally got it and just finished it.  Really marvelous, about how th ings change in a culture, how fads, trends, epidemics are spread.  Why teens smoke cigarettes (the best analysis by far that I have ever read).  I'd say this is a work of Social Psychology, but I don't believe the social psychologists would claim him.  Fortune mag. said, "A fascinating book that makes you see the world in a different way."  True.  One of the concepts presented (in his readable, entertaining manner) is that of the "Connector".  This is an individual who has a very, very large circle of "weak ties" relationships.  Knows a helluva lot of people, their names, a tad about them, greets them when they meet in public.  There are people who are world class "connectors", who know vastly more people in t his way than the rest of us, and they are key to the spread of any idea.  He talks about Paul Revere's ride, how effective it was, and largely that was Paul was a connector.  If Joe Schmo rode out to say "The Brittish are coming!" it would not have raised an army overnight as did Paul.  Connectors are important.  ... You'll  love this book.  One of the reasons I loved it was that I found that I am myself in a modest way a connector here in Cincinnati.  Wherever I go, the person I am with says, "Ellen, You know everybody!"  Not true, of course, but I have lived here since 1940, all my life, and love to make linkages among and between people.  Read the book, or if you h ave already read it, leave your own comments below.