The tipping point: how little things can make a big difference is the first book of Malcolm Gladwell published in Great Britain in 2000 by Little brown. The tipping point is a non-fiction book. It explains how one dramatic moment can change all at once is the tipping point an also explain why some idea works and others do not with support of various stories from real life.
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'A Review of The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell'
In the starting of the book, Gladwell gave an example of a shoe brand named hush puppies that was out of fashion and suddenly become a trend – to show the importance of the tipping point and how changes that happened at margin are incremental changes. And further in the book he illustrates many examples like how crime dropped dramatically in New York City, why teenage smoking is out of control even after knowing it’s ill effects. He describes research that made “sesame street” so good at teaching kids and “blue’s clues” was even better, and also compare Paul revere’s and another unknown rider from Boston at same time with same message but why only revere achieved fame? and illustrate many more experiments and stories which make trend into an epidemic.
He says that 80/20 principle, which is the idea that in any situation 80 percent of the work done by 20 percent of participants but when it comes to epidemic: a tiny percentage of people do majority of the work. Further, he explains “The three rules of the tipping points- the law of the few, the stickiness factor, the power of context. They provide direction on how to reach the tipping point.
There are three types of people who can spread idea in a contagious way:
Connectors knows lots of people. They are the kind of people who knows everyone. He cites the six degree of separation concept which means that a very small number of people are linked to everyone else is few steps, and rest of us are linked to the world through those special few. The closer the idea or a product comes to connector, the more power and opportunity it has, these people learn about new information by an entirely random process, that because they know so many people, they get access to new information whenever they pop up.
These people control word of mouth epidemic. Maven is someone who solve his own problems- his own emotional need by solving other people’s problems. They read more magazines, newspapers and they are the only people who read junk mail. What sets them apart is that once they figure out how to that deal, they want to tell others about it too.
They are persuaders, people with powerful negotiation skills. They have an indefinable trait goes beyond what they say, which makes others want to agree with them. Mavens are data banks- they provide the message. connectors are social glues - they spread it and salesmen convince the messages to others with their persuasive power.
The stickiness factor: In the epidemics messenger matter but the content of the message matters too. To create an epidemic the message has to be sticky. Message should be so memorable that it can create change someone’s action. Therefore, one has to know the target group and message should be stick enough to make people listen to the message.
The power of context: Author says that “epidemics are sensitive to the condition and circumstances of the times and places in which they occur”. Once the importance of context understood, specific and relatively small elements in the environment can serve as tipping points, the situation can be upside down. Environment tipping points are things that we can change: for example, by fixing broken windows and cleaning up graffiti, crime rate can decrease.
The author concludes that to start a word of mouth epidemic resources should be only concentration on connectors, mavens, and salesmen. Those who are successful at creating social epidemics do not just do what they think is right but they deliberately test their intuitions and act upon the test result.
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Malcolm Gladwell very well connected the market concept with real-life examples which makes concepts easy for readers to understand. Things are not as simple as they look, there is a reason behind every act. Behind every act we do, there is the power of people – connectors, maven, and salesmen. This book explains how we often ignore these people or fail to notice them. He very well explains some phenomena that make little sense. Although this book is several years old, the idea, concepts are discussed are even relevant to today’s social media era and can be applied to any business situation.
