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Business. Sociology. Nonfiction. HTML: From the bestselling author of The Bomber Mafia: discover Malcolm Gladwell's breakthrough debut and explore the science behind viral trends in business, marketing, and human behavior. The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or a drop in the crime rate. This widely acclaimed bestseller, in which Malcolm Gladwell explores and brilliantly illuminates the tipping point phenomenon, is already changing the way people throughout the world think about selling products and disseminating ideas. "A wonderful page-turner about a fascinating idea that should affect the way every thinking person looks at the world." â??Michael Lewis… (more)
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But if you like real books, i.e. a collection of pages that constitutes a single, valuable, interesting object, then
In conclusion, Malcom's book seems to be more a first draft than a finished work.
The style is not consistent across chapters, and the connections between chapters and topics is weak.
My big beef with this and with most of his work is that he’s far too credulous, reductive, and deterministic about the findings of psychology, sociology, cogsci, neurology, etc. He constantly makes the mistake of conflating statistical trends and correlations with ironclad physical laws that apply directly and inviolably to you the reader and everyone else. It makes for a nice just-so-story and has the added benefit for him of telling lots of pseudo-intellectual business/marketing types exactly what they want to hear and making them feel really smart for knowing the same truths he has just interviewed a bunch of them to “discover.”
This approach may be lucrative and even somewhat diverting in his able hands, but it does a disservice to the richness and implications of the material and to the curiosity of the reader.Basically, his approach boils down to: “I’ve interviewed a few scienticians and marketing flacks about X, and found that this is the way things are, so you had better get used to it.” and, by implication: “Those who are enlightened enough to detect and accept these inevitabilities can turn them to their own advantage and win big!”
Compare that with someone else who writes on similar topics for an overlapping audience, Steven Johnson, whose approach is: “I got really interested in X, so I went out and learned as much as I could about it, and this is what I found. Isn’t that cool?! And here’s how it relates to Y and Z. And, finally, here are some possible implications, but what actually develops depends on how we decide to act on this knowledge and these connections.”
In a quintessentially Gladwellian fashion, I’ll leave it to you to divine who I think has the better approach.
Malcom Gladwell is a writer for the magazine, The New Yorker, who believed the smallest things could cause an epidemic of change. Gladwell states that in order for certain trends to develop and spread, they must be seen through a certain context and the right type of personalities are involved. He supports his theories through a wide range of examples like historical stories, teen smoking, the culture of skating, revolutionaries like Paul Revere, restaurants, and popular children’s shows.
Malcom Gladwell believed that if you analyze popular trends you would find that they all evolved along similar paths. These paths are what made it likely for a trend to become mainstream behavior. Galdwell noticed three factors that determine if a idea or thought would “tip” into becoming a trend; the Law of the Few, Stickiness Factor and The Power of Context.
The first factor of a “social epidemic” as Gladwell calls trends is the Law of Few. It is a phenomenon where small amounts of people are the driving force behind pushing trends into popularity. These people are Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen. Connectors are those who are the most socially connected and make friends easy. They are most active through word of mouth. Mavens are the “know-it-alls”. They are the ones that pride themselves in knowing the latest, hottest, best way to do things and love to share it. Salesmen are the people who can convince others to believe anything.
Once you have the talkers talking, spreading the word of the trend then comes getting the trend to stick in the minds of the masses. This is the Stickiness Factor. It is the ability to draw people in and keep them focused on the trend forcing the trend to grow larger. This is the hardest part of the transformation since without the ability of the trend to stay in a person’s mind, it will not influence the person’s future behavior and the trend will die. Gladwell uses popular children’s shows such as “Sesame Street” and “Blue's Clues" to highlight how presentation and research was the key to the show’s success. The show’s trends “stuck” because the producers learned what the children needed and wanted to see, packaging it in a manner children found enjoyable. This made the children want to change their behaviors and pushed the shows to their “tipping points”.
The third factor in an “epidemic change” is the Power of Context. It is the ability of human behavior to be affected by the environment such as demographics or the economy. If the “social epidemic” is not correctly introduced then it is most not likely to be accepted. Gladwell used “power of numbers” as an example where if you are in a large crowd and need help, you are less likely to receive assistance due to the fact everyone assumes that someone else will help and do nothing. However, if you are in a small crowd and need help, they are more likely to assist you in fear that their lack of help will be noticed.
Last, Gladwell discusses the Epidemic Curve, the lifeline of the trend or “epidemic change”. It starts out slow to raise as it gains momentum and “tips” just as “early adopters” start to promote the trend. Then it rasies sharply as the “majority” of the population joins in. Finally, it falls away as the last of “laggards” join in.
Gladwell’s use of examples to make it easy to relate to everyday life is excellent. He uses easy to understand terminology and explains out his theories thoroughly make it easy for readers to understand and connect to. Even though Gladwell used a variety of events from the last few decades, he failed to tie them into the examples. They seemed to not be fully developed. He rarely presented any supporting facts linking the factors to key roles in causing the trend to bloom into a sensation. It appeared most of the reasons for popularity were based on assumptions as there was no data to back up what his sources were for his information.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys analytics. Its 304 pages is a quick read with very little yawn space mixed in. It was filled with thought provoking examples such as children’s shows ability to teaching children read or New York’s ability to change the crime rate with erasing graffiti in the subway. I can see how Gladwell’s theory could be based on fact given the right environment or right people change happens, it almost seems a given.
The book was insightful, by explaining how social roles affect behaviors and how it “tips” ideas to become popular. This book is best used for marketing majors who need to know how to operate as successful marketing campaign. However, I could see how it might be useful in social reform also. It is clear that little things can make a big difference. Understanding this fact will defiantly help in communicating and marketing to your customer base.
Small things can make big changes! All it takes is the right factors to create a “social epidemic”. All you need are the right few people (law of few); Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen are those people who know the most in a situation; they have the most social connections and can really get the idea out and spread around to others. The right idea pitched to the right people meeting their needs right at that moment (law of stickiness) and the right time and environment for a change (law of context); mix the three factors together into a boiling pot of society and it will “tip” over from a trend to a social norm causing a ripple effect throughout time.
What Gladwell describes, at a very superficial level and without any kind of scientific analysis, is how outcomes in fields like marketing, public health, and social behaviour can be determined by rather small-scale inputs, as long as they are applied in exactly the right place. Which is probably something we all knew already. It's all presented quite charmingly, in the form of case-studies written in the best New Yorker style (frame the chapter with your big story, interrupting it with subsidiary pieces of evidence, identify an engaging representative person for each bit of the story, scatter in a few subjective elements...). So it's very readable, but it all leaves you with that vaguely unsatisfied feeling that you always get from books on pop psychology or business. A good disposable book for a shortish train journey.
Anyway, it was a waste of time to read. I liked Blink and
Gladwell's book breaks down a variety of topics - from Paul Revere's Ride to Blue's Clues to Suicide in Micronesia to Teen Smoking - and discusses what it is that made these things tip where other things languished or never made it out of the gate. He'll introduce you to the individuals that are key in most movements - connectors, mavens and salesmen - and how they're the ones that will bring an idea from a simmer to the tipping point.
Again, Gladwell isproviding rock-solid answers to why things tip. Instead, he's offering general ideas, but within these ideas are a lot of fantastic nuggets of information.
This was exactly the sort of Mickey Mouse social science that I like. Lots of anecdotes that illustrate what seems to be bona fide research. I'd say it's pretty selective, though, as far as research goes. I think, or rather, I know, I became a somewhat annoying
On the downside, there's a little bit of an evangelical tone that was unsettling. I guess I always get wary of authors who don't include any exceptions to the rule, not even in the case of "here's an exception to the rule, I think we need to do more research in this area to find what other factors are pushing this outside of the expected outcomes."
Grade: B
Recommended: I think this is an interesting read for anyone who works in a job that involves a lot of people -- whether you're people herder, or getting information out to people in bulk, that sort of thing.
In general, I found his main point to be nothing terribly new. Yes, perhaps this is because I'm an epidemiologist, but I already know change can happen quickly. And his three areas are too narrow, focussing really on the potential for use in advertising. Gladwell goes on at great length with examples, and he clearly has read the statistic that says people learn things if they hear them at least seven times, because his book was very repetitive. It's main flaws were that it could have been a 20 page treatise and instead was sold as a book, and secondly that he found a hammer and then absolutely everything was a nail. However, a few interesting ideas came through:
The idea that the "six degrees of separation" phenomenon does not mean everyone knows a certain number of people who know a certain number of people, but rather that a certain few are Connectors who know everyone. If you want to meet people you find a connector and they open worlds.
That some people are better emoters and some better receivers of human signals. Put an emoter in a room with two receivers and without saying a word the mood of the three will converge to the emoter mood after about five minutes. He uses this as an argument to say that we are influenced by more than we think, but you could just as well point out the opposite, i.e. that some have more influence than we choose to believe. Both sides of the coin.
In general, this was an interesting if repetitive book. It certainly made me think, and that in any book is a good achievement.
At first, I thought I might end up just liking it and giving it three stars, because the beginning didn't impress me a great deal, but I liked it okay. However, as the book went on I have to say either it got better or I just was in a better reading space, because I liked it quite a bit.
However, as with any study like this, you have to take some of it with a grain of salt. For example, I easily knew enough people IRL in the surname test to be a Connector as I am gregarious & love to get to know people, but I'd hardly call myself a Connector as I don't pass on trends or recommend restaurants, nor do I think people take me as an authority in that sort of way. I don't spend much time on Facebook and only just joined Twitter. As much as my friends loved my personal statement of wearing a certain hat one year in high school (one unique enough to be TMI, and yet fit the decade I went to high school) none went out and tried to imitate the style. Instead, after that year it became part of my mime costume for the next number of years (so if you're a facebook friend you can take a look at it if you're on there & think of it, but that photo was taken the following year in California with different friends). Now had I lived in a different place than a small town where everyone wore one of 2 or 3 brands of the same style jeans (that's how it was back then, I kid you not--greasers, cool kids, jocks, et al weren't known by their different jeans) etc, perhaps it would have been different, but if I were a betting person, I wouldn't bet on it.
Nevertheless, it's a worthwhile read. It's not what I originally planned for this a tag in the play book tag group here, but I found it browsing the Sociology section of our local library.