The Tipping Point Review
The new book, “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell, discussing the crucial or critical points, “the magic moment when an idea, trend or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips and spreads like wildfire”. Essentially, an idea is like a diseaseâÂ?¦and it can and does catch on like the flu. A small but precisely targeted push can cause a fashion rend, the popularity of a new product etc. The Tipping Point attempts to define the critical needed elements to create that crucial key to create a wildfire.
The first crucial element to creating a turning point is to attempt it. Most people think have real problems accepting a concept that creates dramatic change. Gladwell states, “We have trouble estimating dramatic, exponential change. We cannot conceive that a piece of paper folding over 50 times could reach the sum. There are abrupt limits to the number of cognitive categories we can makeâÂ?¦It is messy and opaque. Humans prefer overall prefer things neat and organized, placed in understandable categories.
There are three main laws that The Tipping Point refers too:
Law number 1: The Law of the Few is “heavenly dependent on the involvement of people with a particular and rare set of social gifts”. Gladwell calls these people “Connectors”. Connectors unlike most people have friends from a lot of different groups of people. According to Gladwell, “Most of us don’t have a particularly broad and diverse group of friends-we tend to stick to people who are like us, “friends of a similar age and race, and social group”. Connectors also take the differing ideas of the differing social groups that communicate them from one group to another.
Another crucial “few” is a group of individual that Gladwell, calls “Maven”. A maven finds new ideas and they know how to pass those ideas from one person to another.”
Either a maven or a connector is needed to start a “tipping point”. A maven is generally passionate.
Law number 2: The Stickiness Factor. Counter to intuitive thinking, “the stickiness factor”, is that it is the small little changes that create the largest effect. The stickiness factor suggests that the problem with “selling” a product probably wasn’t with the overall conception of the message at all; it many times simply requires a small little change. Gladwell uses example after example of how small changes create a large effect and that many times “sticking” to a project and making small changes until you find the “recipe’ is the key to success.
Gladwell uses an example of Georgia Sadler who began a campaign to increase knowledge of diabetes and breast cancer in San Diego. She tried various methodologies of creating stickiness. Her primary way of getting the information out was to take her message to churches. Her methodology didn’t work. She needed a new, stickier way of presenting the information. She needed to make all those changes in such a way that she didn’t exceed the very small amount of money she’d cobbled together from various foundations and funding groups. Her solution? Move the campaign from black churches to beauty salons. It’s a captive audience, Sadler says. These women maybe at a salon from for anywhere from two hours to eight hours, if they are having their hair braided”. The small change created a large and successful change. This is also called according to Gladwell a Band-Aid solution. A stickiness solution is many times a band-aid solution, “A convenient short-cut, and a way to make a lot out of a little”.
Law Number 3: The Power of Context. Essentially the power of context construct is the power of peer pressure. We as human beings respond instinctively to peer pressure. But many times Gladwell states that peer pressure is subtle and we as humans respond to it without really being aware of it. Gladwell states, “Once you understand that context matters, however, that specific and relatively small elements in the environment can serve as “tipping points”.” However, one radical aspect of the Power of Context Gladwell states is that again “what really matters is little things”. Relatedly, the power of context states that our inner states are reflective of our outer environment. Essentially, the streets we currently walk down, the people that we ‘randomly” encounter, play a huge role in who we are and how we act. Essentially, symbols even small symbols have huge aftereffects. The law of the power of context Gladwell also describes as the law of the broken windows. “Broken Windows was the brainchild of the criminologists James Q. Wilson and George Killing. Wilson and Kelling argued that crime is the inevitable result of disorder. If a window is broken and left unrepaired, people walking by will conclude that no one cares and no one is in charge. Soon, more windows will be broken, and the sense of anarchy will spread from the building to the street on which it faces, sending a signal that anything goes.”. The broken window is a symbol for disorder. Left unattended this powerful ‘small” symbol creates more disorder. The broken window theory says that crime contagious-just as a fashion trend is contagious-that it can start with a broken window and spread to an entire community.
