Opinion Leadership

Malcolm Gladwell devotes a whole section to "Opinion Leaders." See The Tipping Point, New York: Little Brown and Company, 2002)pp. 30-81.

Wikipedia defines "opinion leadership" as:

A concept that arose out of the theory of two-step flow of communication propounded by Paul Lazarsfeld and Elihu Katz. This theory is one of several models that try to explain the diffusion of innovations, ideas, or commercial products. The opinion leader is the agent who is an active media user and who interprets the meaning of media messages or content for lower-end media users. Typically the opinion leader is held in high esteem by those that accept his or her opinions. Opinion leadership tends to be subject specific, that is, a person that is an opinion leader in one field may be a follower in another field. An example of an opinion leader in the field of computer technology, might be a neighborhood computer service technician. The technician has access to far more information on this topic than the average consumer and has the requisite background to understand the information.

With the rise of Web 2.0 I'm not sure this two-stage communication model works as well as it did in the past. It seems that our disintermediated society is avoiding traditiional opinion leaders and going to reputation management systems. Still, opinion leaders are an important source of spreading the word about an entrepreneur's vision or venture and I would not ignore them.

Everything for me is an entrepreneurial activity. For my thoughts on entrepreneurial real estate, go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog; and for writing and publishing to to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blotspot.com