MOG

Michelle here. In the week (oh my God, that makes me want to cry. Breathe, Michelle) . . . since Christopher left us, I have wondered a lot at what it was about him that made us all relate to him so much. Over the past few days I realized what it was, finally, that has brought us all to this page, to a state of mourning, to realizations about friendship and life and change and what our place in the world is . . . it was because Crash was our Connector.

Stanley Milgram, a social psychologist who did pioneering work in the 1960s on groups and change, formed much of the theory that Malcolm Gladwell articulated in The Tipping Point. Before I get to Milgram, though, let me explain a little Gladwell:

The Tipping Point contends that our ideas about change, as intuitive as they are, are really all wrong.

Here’s an intuitive idea about change: things go along and go along, gradually building and building and building, and then everything tips because of critical mass. Like shaken Coke in a bottle; eventually the pressure is going to blow off the bottle cap. And bam, the world changes. But another truth is counter-intuitive. Change can also occur because of social viruses, usually spread by one person. The truth is that one person can actually change the world.

In his book Gladwell uses the spread of the AIDS virus in the U.S. as one of his first examples of tippers. Patient Zero spread the virus to something like 160 people. It wasn’t just about being promiscuous though. Patient Zero behaved in extraordinary ways – he went above and beyond promiscuous. He was, to be blunt, the world champion of unprotected bisexual one-night stands. Before you go thinking I’m advocating one night stands (hey live like you want, but let’s not get off on a tangent . . .) – Gladwell’s point is that the behavior of one person caused the rapid spread of AIDS. Within months AIDS had spread all over the eastern seaboard, and within a year of Patient Zero’s big multi-state sexcapade, AIDS caused a health crisis in this country.

Gladwell cited studies done to understand the behavior of the Kitty Genovese case in New York City as another example. Psychologists and sociologists found in several studies that the more people heard a person in distress, the fewer responded. The fact that there were people around caused people to believe “someone else was taking care of it;” experiments done with a girl screaming in a hotel room with only one or two other people on the floor always had the same result: the girl would be saved because those people knew they were the only people around to help.

So. On to Milgram. Milgram’s work in social networks showed that in social groups that managed to evoke significant change (started a breast cancer research center, a successful business, won a national basketball championship, etc – ok I’m dumping basketball in there because tomorrow is our first exhibition game and therefore on my mind, but you see what I mean) there were people who were HUBS in those networks. These hubs, what Gladwell calls CONNECTORS in his book, affected change both with their behavior and by the fact that they knew an amazing number of people.

Examples of connectors who changed the course of history include Oskar Schindler. Paul Revere. . . As I have read all the posts this week from people, I am struck by how many people Christopher affected. How lives were changed, touched, transformed. I went back to his MOG page and there it is . . . the amazingly broad and deep knowledge Chris had about the world, music, and life, and all the people he knew, and all the people he touched. I have had conversations this week with people who literally changed direction after meeting (and e-meeting) Christopher. And in those conversations, new relationships were formed, new life was breathed into things, and a chance for renewal was given to all of us.

If Crash taught us anything, it’s that one person . . . just one person, in one moment . . . can make a difference; our collective energy in the e-verse can lift someone up we don’t even know. Crash did that . . . he lifted so many up, and I praise him for that . . . and so can you. Christopher is gone, but we must live on and stay connected until we are together with Crash again. Because it does mean something real.