maven

plural mavens · alternative mavin · alternative mayven · alternative mayvin

1. USAn expert in a given field; also, a person who is interested in and knowledgeable about a particular activity or thing; an aficionado.

   The goal for any media company is to be a maven—and therefore highly adept at using multiple channels of social media communication well.

   2010, Rachel Davis Mersey, “Paying for It All”, in Can Journalism Be Saved?: Rediscovering America’s Appetite for News, Santa Barbara, Calif.: Praeger, ABC-CLIO, →ISBN, part 3 (A New Model of Journalism), page 118

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   Connectors know people—lots of people. Mavens know about things. They know, or find out first, what is going on. Connectors, says [Malcolm] Gladwell, need mavens to tell them what to buzz about.

   2003, Joseph H. Boyett, Jimmie T. Boyett, “All You Need is Buzz”, in The Guru Guide to Marketing: A Concise Guide to the Best Ideas from Today’s Top Marketers, Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 207

   Besides an executive sponsor, you need to find a technology maven, someone within the company who understands the new technology. A maven, as defined in Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, is a person who has both information and the social skills to pass it along. The challenge in a situation such as this one is that the maven might be outside of IT.

   2006 January 23, Virginia Robbins, “Opinion: Eight Steps to Leadership”, in Dan Tennant, editor, Computerworld: The Voice of IT Management, volume 40, number 4, Framingham, Mass.: Computerworld, Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 19, column 2

   Synonyms: cognoscente, connoisseur, adept, ace, artist, buff, crackerjack, crack hand · Antonyms: abecedarian, alphabetarian, apprentice, amateur, beginner, bun, colt, first-timer

1. abbreviationacronymUS space program; space; US space program; spaceAcronym of Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission, a space probe designed to investigate the Martian climate.