Definition of "maven"
maven
noun
plural mavens
(chiefly US) An expert in a given field; also, a person who is interested in and knowledgeable about a particular activity or thing; an aficionado.
Quotations
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, 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., page 19, column 2
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, part 3 (A New Model of Journalism), page 118