The Law of Plentitude: More is more. The theory behind law of plentitude is simple: as the number of members in a network increase, the number of connections (and the value of that network) increase exponentially.
The Tipping Point discusses one of the most commonly used analogies when discussing the law of plentitude: the invention of the fax machine. While the first fax machine came about after millions of dollars went into research to create it, it was essentially worthless. It was worthless because a fax machine needs another fax machine to communicate with. Kevin Kelly explains the Law of Plentitude by describing what he calls the “fax effect”: “Because fax machines are linked into a network, each individual fax machine that is shipped increases the value of the fax machine operating before it.”
In the Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell discusses that usually the rarer something is the more valuable it is, but in examples of the Law of Plentitude, the exact opposite it true: more is more….until it is too much.
I come from the MySpace era where us teeny boppers of the 90’s created “profiles” and told the whole world everything about us. It connected us to people all over the world, we all became “friends”. This lead to Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram (and all the other mediums out there). I loved MySpace and then I LOVED Facebook, until it changed (or I changed) and it all became too much. Nothing was private anymore, no moments were precious memories between just the people who experienced them and everyone had an opinion about everything; I just kind of got over it.
Gladwell, uses examples of telemarketing and emails to explain this phenomenon. It used to be so exciting making a phone call or receiving an email, but now we are inundated with people trying to take up our precious time using our phone numbers and our email addresses to sell us something or get something from us.
In business today this is something to be aware of. The abuse of using the commonplace modes of communication to get some business. I think this is how Wavetech sets itself apart from the rest: we earn our customers business, by building actual relationships with our customers and making sure service is our top priority. We still find value in a hand written thank you card and nothing beats a fresh baked cookie when we come by to say hi.
