A Maven is someone who shares their knowledge (trusted expert in a particular field) and know they the good way to share it with others. Those who are intense gatherers of information and impressions, and so are often the first to pick up on new or nascent trends.
Malcolm Gladwell used the term in his book The Tipping Point (Little Brown, 2000. Gladwell cites Mark Alpert as a prototypical Maven who is "almost pathologically helpful", further adding, "he can't help himself". In this vein, Alpert himself concedes, "A Maven is someone who wants to solve other people's problems, generally by solving his own".
The word reached English through Late Hebrew mēbhīn, which in turn derived it from the Hebrew mevin (מבֿין), meaning "one who understands," and relates to the word binah, which denotes understanding or wisdom in general. It was first recorded (spelled mayvin) in English in 1950 (in the Jewish Standard of Toronto), and popularized in the United States in the 1960s.
Malcolm Gladwell used the term in his book The Tipping Point (Little Brown, 2000. Gladwell cites Mark Alpert as a prototypical Maven who is "almost pathologically helpful", further adding, "he can't help himself". In this vein, Alpert himself concedes, "A Maven is someone who wants to solve other people's problems, generally by solving his own".
