The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell

One of the other assignments for this course was to read TheTipping Point by Malcom Gladwell, a reporter for The New Yorker. I found the book to be very interesting, because it was discussing something that occurs in every popular situation: the tipping point where an item or thought that only occurs in a small group of people suddenly explodes and is acknowledged by a lot of people.

 

The Tipping Point is an excellent novel about something that truly exists but no one ever thinks about. Gladwell sums it up for the reader in three rules: the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context. He then goes on to explain each rule in depth to really help the reader grasp the concept of the Tipping Point.

He starts with the Law of the Few, which boils down to the fact that there are only a few people that can really cause something to tip: Mavens, Connectors, and Salesmen. Mavens are people that pay attention to ever detail in life, and can tell you exactly where you should go for the best experience in any given place that they have traveled to. They know how to get the best deals, who to talk to, and how to get great service. They also share their information with others because they want to help that person have a better experience. Connectors are people who know a wide variety of people. They have many acquaintances. They are not like regular people, because regular people just want a core group of friends. Connectors talk to and are friendly with everyone. And finally, there are Salesmen that instantly make you like them.These three types of people convince other people to go and try/buy/do new things, causing the new thing to tip and explode with popularity. This is a very astute observation, because, if you think about it, it is very true. Almost everything I buy is based off a recommendation from someone else. I also know who to ask for the best places to purchase things.

Gladwell uses the children’s show Blues Clues and Sesame Street as examples of the Stickiness Factor.  He explains that in order for something to be effective and explode into an epidemic, it must have a stickiness factor. It must stick with the client, and force them to pay attention. Sesame Street ran many, many tests with children to see what was effective and what wasn’t. Their experiments allowed them to perfect a show that taught children while they watched. Blues Clues copied this concept, but simplified the show to make children even more interested (I would know, I was one of them back in the day).

 

The last thing Gladwell says bring a situation to its Tipping Point is the Power of Context. Gladwell uses Bernie Goetz and the New York City subway shooting incident as an example here. Crime was extremely high in New York City, especially on the subway. Goetz was seen as sort of a hero by the public for standing up to four youths who were harassing him on the subway. Many of the patrons of the transit system felt like Goetz had taken the subway back for all the non-threatening people out there. The Broken Windows theory was instilled first in the New York City subway system and then in the NYPD, and it made a huge difference, proving that the context of a situation can cause something to tip. If you take away the small things in a criminal’s environment, the big things are likely to change rapidly. Gladwell spends the rest of the novel explaining case studies that prove his points. He explores the world of epidemics, and explains exactly what causes them. It is something that affects everyone, but no one ever thinks about its origins.

Gladwell uses excellent prose with many examples that apply to most people to enforce his ideas, and it definitely stays with you. I wish more of my teachers over the years took a page out of Gladwell's book.