Amanda Penn, Author at Shortform Books

Network Effect: How to Exploit It, and Why It Sometimes Fails

What is the “network effect”? How does it work? What impact does the network effect have on how you spread your fabulous ideas? The network effect is the theory that, in some cases, the number of users of a good or service affects the value of that good or service. According to the network effect, the more users, the higher the value of the service or product. We’ll cover how the network effect works and how we’ve become so overwhelmed by the various networks available to us that we’re starting to become immune to them.

How Does Ted Lavender Die? (The Things They Carried)

How does Ted Lavender die in The Things They Carried? What is the significance of his death? Ted Lavender is shot in the head and killed outside a small village during the Vietnam War in The Things They Carried. His death comes entirely out of the blue and deeply impacts his commanding officer. We’ll cover how Ted Lavender dies and how his fellow soldiers deal with his death. Learn how Lavender’s death (and the reactions to it) exemplify the themes of the novel.

Malcolm Gladwell’s “Connectors”: People Who Spread Ideas

Who are Malcolm Gladwell’s connectors? How are they crucial to the spread of ideas and important for business? Connectors are people who seem to know everyone. You can find Connectors in every walk of life. Connectors are sociable, gregarious, and are naturally skilled at making — and keeping in contact with — friends and acquaintances. The term comes from Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point. We’ll cover the role of Tipping Point‘s connectors in business and why they’re crucial to the spread of ideas, services, and products.

Social Channel Capacity: 150 Real Relationships Is Your Max

What does “channel capacity” mean? How much information is the brain able to store? What does this mean about the number of relationships we’re able to maintain? Channel capacity is a term in cognitive psychology that says humans have limited space in our brains for certain kinds of information: by and large, we can only remember six or seven things — whether objects, numbers, categories, or sounds — before we get overwhelmed and start to lose track. Similarly, social channel capacity states that we have a limited emotional capacity. We can only maintain deep relationships with a limited number of

The Things They Carried: Themes—The 4 Most Important Points

What are the most prominent The Things They Carried themes? What happens in the book to illustrate these themes? The Things They Carried themes are trauma, brutalization, shame, and the power of storytelling. These are the most important themes in this Vietnam War classic. We’ll cover the most important The Things They Carried themes and look at how they played out in the book.

Sticky Ideas: Make Your Message Personal + Practical

What are “sticky” ideas? How can you make ideas sticky, so they’re adopted by thousands, or even millions, of people? Sticky ideas are ideas that make an impact and stand out from the white noise of all the other ideas we come across in a day. In marketing, the stickier the idea, the more likely it is to sell a product or service. We’ll cover the principles of sticky ideas and look at some powerful “sticky idea” examples.

Purpose of the Stanford Prison Experiment: Evil In All Of Us

What was the purpose of the Stanford Prison Experiment? What were its findings? What does it say about our tendency to overestimate the importance of personality traits over social pressures? We’ll cover the purpose and findings of the Stanford Prison Experiment and discuss its implications.

Negative Role Models: Why Their Habits Are Contagious

What effect do negative role models have on kids? How do “permission-givers” affect children and teens when it comes to smoking? We’ll explore why negative role models can be so influential. Understanding the mechanisms behind this influence may be the first step toward change.

Environmental Context: Subtle Cues Change Your Behavior

How does our environmental context, the changes in our setting, affect our behavior? Can subtle changes in our environments determine whether or not an idea or product catches on? We’ll cover the science behind how your environmental context affects your behavior and look at a surprising example of the ways subtle changes in our environmental context and affect you.

3 Powerful Tipping Point Examples

In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell explains how social epidemics — spreading ideas, messages, behaviors, and products — function like viruses, growing gradually until they reach a critical mass (the tipping point) and explode. What are some good tipping-point examples? We’ll look at two powerful tipping-point examples from Gladwell’s book and discuss how epidemics occur in both the medical and social worlds.