An all pervasive Matthew Effect

• Around 5 % of people control 95% of wealth in the world .

• A small group of celebrities have their presence all the time in television.  

• In a certain college batch,  20 % of people  know around 80% of the people but the rest 80% people know only 20 %.

• Some boys have most or all  of the girls hanging around them , while most of the boys are lone wolves.

You may have come across such things , if not take a deeper look and you will be surprised.

This is Pareto's 80/20 rule , the law of vital few , which states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.This principle is nicely described in a  highly interesting work by Richard Koch: "The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More with Less" .The prime reason for this 80/20 disparity lies  in what we called Matthew effect. coined on the lines of this biblical  the Gospel of Matthew:

"For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; 
but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away."

Ever Heard that thing "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer" . That is  what Matthew effect is all about .The rich will leverage their wealth to get more wealth .They' ll invest the wealth in different areas and thus increase their chances of gaining more wealth. A highly social person will have a lot of connections , and he will use those connections to increase his social visibility.So a small advantage in past makes a big difference in future . Well there is always hard work,passion and intelligence involved, but they are necessities and not the sufficient parameters.

  

Now an  interesting thing would be to  implement the Matthew Effect  for our advantage.

Take this example :'There is this boy who has  a girlfriend and they are happy with each other.Other Girls think of him as a confident person, who knows how to behave with girls .So they get attracted to him . This in turn increases the confidence of the boy and he becomes more likable and the cycle continues'. The underlying principle that works here can be summed up in one word : 'Momentum'  i.e. "keeping up the pace" .What ever one wants to achieve, he has to act on it first .Start small , keep up the pace and ultimately Matthew effect will catch up and help you  get whatever you want. So you think you have a great idea and want to start you own company . Start it . It may fail  , but do not resign on it. Improve the idea and keep up the pace. Make more and more contacts , ultimately you will have that edge on others . This is just a law of nature .I have started this blog with the same conviction . 

 I hope that Matthew effect will catch up for me too :).