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Summary: This book changed my world view!
Review: In it Malcolm shows how viral marketing works by identifying key factors to the sucess of various ventures in several very clear and well researched case studies.The life changing bit for me though was his indentification of a type of personality he labled a connector, someone who knows everyone, and he showed how the world works better in large part because of connectors. It showed me that I was a hub in a really useful network of people and that to increase the power of that network for everybody in it, all I had to do was focus on what, until then, had been a side effect of how I do business.
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Summary: Diagnosing social epidemics -- a prescription please?
Review: In "The Tipping Point", Malcolm Gladwell weaves disparate tales of trends and phenomena to create meaning and understanding of change and change forces. He analyzes everything from breakaway fashion developments to fluctuations in crime rate to the captivating nature of children's television programs. He compares trends to infectious outbreaks of disease and contends that messages are spread in a similar epidemiological fashion. The author diagnoses the essential players in the outbreak of social epidemics. His "Law of the Few" states that connectors, mavens and salesmen are the essential cogs in the cycle that serve to generate and proliferate messages to the point of critical mass, or the Tipping Point. Connectors have relationships with many people. Mavens have deep knowledge about particular subjects and are anxious to share it. Salespeople influence people to take action. The power of the few can turn a small and seemingly insignificant notion into an international phenomenon. Gladwell explores this recurrent pattern and makes it understandable. An examination of the important qualities of infectious messages indicates they must be "sticky" in order to take hold. They need that little extra bit of interest or flair that causes the idea to hang around in your thoughts for awhile - messages must be memorable. Messages also generate power based on the context in which they are received. When and where you hear or see something is powerful. Environment makes a significant difference. It's important to note this factor is one over which society can exert some control. Eliminating graffiti in subway stations reduced overall crime rates in New York. Missing from the book is a strong and clear prescription. How can people harness this knowledge of social epidemics to affect positive change? The idea that we can indeed create a revolution of change, very quickly, and with little resources is a hopeful and inspiring message. The implications could be far reaching for business, international relations and education.
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Summary: The Tipping Point - A Text for Transformational Leaders
Review: "The Tipping Point", by Malcolm Gladwell, is an essential text for individuals (business, educational and government leaders...) who seek to better understand and generate positive social epidemics within today's society. As Gladwell states, "the best way to understand the emergence of fashion trends, the ebb and flow of crime waves, or, for that matter, the transformation of unknown books into bestsellers, or the rise of teenage smoking, or the phenomena of word of mouth, or any number of other mysterious changes that mark everyday life is to think of them as epidemics." Gladwell aptly calls this process, The Tipping Point. Gladwell's insightful argument is that ideas, products, messages and behaviors spread like viruses. To support his argument, Gladwell, describes how Hush Puppies shoes in the 1990s suddenly became fashionable after years of steady decline in sales or how Paul Reveres "word of mouth" ride alarming colonists of an imminent attack by the British spread more effectively than his counterpart, William Dawes, who was carrying the same message. So, how can we better understand why some trends "tip" and others don't? Gladwell argues there are 3 rules which can provide us with insight into the Tipping Point: The Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context. Marketing industry personnel can take a direct lesson from Gladwell's The Tipping Point. Yet, where the text is most effective is how The Tipping Point can be utilized by transformational leaders to better understand why social trends -fall of crime rates in urban cities, teen suicide and smoking - suddenly spike or dissipate within communities. Understanding human nature is not an exact science. Therefore, by critically examining societal epidemics and their tipping points, transformational leaders can better serve their communities by instilling positive changes/trends to remedy negative societal epidemics.
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Summary: Do not pass up this book!
Review: This is one of the most phenomenal books I have read in years! How do things get so popular so quick? How does a virus spread? Why are some people the "EF Hutton" of their town? Why did so many people listen to Paul Revere? Malcolm Gladwell does the unthinkable in researching the stuff we all want to know. This is a book you do not want to pass up.
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Summary: Rock Your World
Review: If you want the real deal, and true understanding of POWER of yourself and the POWER of BEYOND yourself - how to tap into what you can do, how to use it, and where it came from, why you have it, how to balance it, and what you're supposed to do with it, read these books. I read mucho, mucho books, and was impressed by several that are unique and have something DIFFERENT to say. We all have to better ourselves, right? Need a reason to live, right? I've ordered a lot of self-help/spiritual/mind body spirit DOGS, so this is my way of saving you a lot of MONEY (hey, then you can buy more books - get off your butt, forget da tube). HEY, I'm spiritual - you know - a REAL MAN who wants to be fit on the INSIDE and the OUTSIDE. Sorry Girls, my HEART is already taken. This list is my Season's Greetings to you. Rock and Roll your clicky finger and order them now! NOW!
Merry Xmas, Ho Ho Ho!!! * Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul- John Elredge
* Psychic Gifts in the Christian Life - Tools to Connect -Tiffany Snow
* Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life - Johnson, Blanchard
* The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference -Malcolm Gladwell
* The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment - Eckhart Tolle
* The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? - Rick Warren
* Guy Q by Joe Kita
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Summary: No analysis, just amusing stories
Review: This book is presented as an explanation of what it is that might cause something to go from insignificance to ubiquity. It in fact does nothing of the sort and is actually just an amusing collection of stories. It is well written as a social history, and has a light, journalistic style good for dipping into, but the reader is left absolutely none the wiser as to why any of it happened. I would therefore class it as pretty much a waste of anyone's time. One thing that particularly annoyed me about this book is that chaos theory - a branch of mathematics almost 40 years old, for the analysis and prediction of exactly the sort of thing this book is wondering about - is mentioned only once: as a footnote. That's like writing a book about why planets stay in orbit around the sun, and mentioning astrophysics as an aside.
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Summary: So many new ideas I couldn't sleep!
Review: Do not read this book before going to bed. There were so many fascinating and new concepts in The Tipping Point, I could almost hear all the new neural pathways being created in my brain all night long! I have found applications for Gladwell's principles in a surprisingly broad range of environments--anything which involves people lends itself to the use of Tipping Point's principles. I came away with an overwhelming feeling that human beings are pack animals, picking up on subtle societal messages on an instinctive level and needing each other more than they'd like to admit.
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Summary: Focus, Test and Believe
Review: The words for my title were taken from the subheading of the concluding chapter of Malcolm Gladwell's intriguing book entitled The Tipping Point. The three words, focus, test and believe are not only a simple description of the entire concept of the book but also extremely effective when applied to Gladwell theory. For instance, a focus for a tipping point is any slight change that can make a huge impact. The test is all the trail and error in trying to find out what causes tipping points and finally believing is when others realize that a tipping point for an event has occurred.
The focus of the book is towards the idea of using epidemics in relation to everyday occurrences, not just major developments in history. The test is a simplified definition of Gladwell's conscious effort to include particular instances, memorable examples, quotes, surveys and everything else to prove and maintain his focus. The believe factor is very simple because that is his primary goal, trying to get the reader to believe him. The most significant aspect of all three of these words is that when the concepts are combined, not only do you believe, you also understand and essentially that is a more worthwhile cause for reading the book.
Primarily the book starts out by setting up the entire theory of tipping points with a reference to the American Revolution and then breaking the concept down into categories. He defines the tipping point as the single event that causes an event to become an epidemic and he outlines the three factors that contribute to this moment. It is this definition and outline that he follows throughout the book and makes the solid foundation for his concept. By doing this he is able to describe not only simple instances but also elaborate experiments that can be then related to his concept. For every thought experiment, such as an idea, an instance, a reference or even a person that Gladwell describes, he always goes back to his outlined concept and correlates the idea with the definition of the tipping point. This focus on maintaining his outlined concept allows the reader to consistently follow Gladwell's train of thought into his next defining concept.
The second aspect of Gladwell's theory and his book, the test, is probably the most insightful and well thought out aspect of the book. The test is basically anything that Gladwell uses to describe everything that he feels the reader should know about. What makes this so interesting is how many different perspectives and ideas he brings to light. He uses everything from the concept of a connectors, mavens and salesmen to the 1960's study done by Harvard sociological researchers for the children's show Sesame Street. Along with including these types of examples and references he also includes an interactive aspect to his book by creating tests for the reader so they can actually see for themselves how relevant his information is to their lives. For instance, he talks about how connected a person is socially and then relates that connection to how they affect a tipping point. But before drawing that connection he gives personal examples about how he knows people, from when, from where and how he met them. He then gives a list of random last names that were used on a social test and tells the reader to go through the names to see how they do on the test. As you have your results in mind, he continues to describe how other people he tested fared on the test and what type of person they are. By the time he's done, you're amazed at how precise his results were and how realistic they are to you.
The best part about the book is how convincing and real Gladwell's theory is and how, right from the beginning, he establishes the trust in the reader that leads them to believe his theory.
For instance, in the opening chapter of the book, Gladwell illustrates a simple example about how yawning is contagious. He writes about a page on the subject of yawning being contagious and how just reading, writing or listening to someone yawn can make you yawn. By using such a strange and almost insignificant issue to focus on and then explaining all his tests, he ensures that the reader believes him. And most of the readers from that point on will not be able to doubt what Gladwell says.
In the end, Malcolm Gladwell does what he is supposed to as an author by focusing on something, doing plenty of research and tests and allowing the reader to believe him. By doing this he not only makes his readers yawn and his book successful, but also makes the Tipping Point valid.
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Summary: Tipping Points are Everywhere
Review: Books like this one are useful, even if for no other reason, because they give you simple terminology with which to grasp ideas that are intuitively obvious, but heretofore without any real conceptual framework with which to express them. For example, I'm interested in the stock market and have always been fascinated by the way stocks will tread water for a long time, then for no apparent reason suddenly double or triple in value, or drop like a rock. I'm also interested in military history and am intrigued by the way large battles often hang in balance for hours until a few soldiers achieve a breakthrough at one point in the battle line, collapsing it within minutes and triggering a sudden rout of the opposing army. Now I have a convenient word to use when trying to describe these things: stock market moves and military battles are both determined by "tipping points". It's a measure of how far reaching this idea is that Mr. Gladwell at no point in his book even mentions the stock market or warfare, or many of the other areas to which his central idea could be applied. He focuses more on what he calls "social epidemics", like teen-age smoking, and on marketing campaigns. This book is aimed at, probably more than anyone else, marketing professionals, whose jobs can be defined as the development of programs designed to lead to tipping points for their products. The essential phenomenon Mr. Gladwell is getting at here is the arithmetic of exponential growth as applied to the social transmission of ideas and information. If I tell two people about something, and they each tell two more, who in turn tell two more, and so forth, it doesn't take too long before my little idea has enough critical mass suddenly to hit the front page or, depending on its nature, make me rich. That's the tipping point. The trick, of course, is boosting the idea with the momentum necessary for it to sustain itself through this transmission process, and it is to this that Mr. Gladwell devotes his attention. He reduces it all to three variables that he calls The Law of the Few, The Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context. Having laid out these concepts, he then goes on to describe how they work through an array of "tipping point" applications. This is all very interesting as far as it goes. The problem with the book is that, unfortunately, it never really goes much beyond the realm of Pop Sociology, i.e., one compelling idea forced into a slick and ultimately shallow formula. His three rules, which he elevates into repetitive dogma, are real, but they ultimately fail to explain very much that's not pretty obvious once you've thought about it, and they leave much unexplained. The other problem is Mr.Gladwell's proclivity for digression. He's a science writer by trade and is in love with the mechanics of scientific research. In developing his "stickiness factor" idea, for example, he devotes over 30 pages- more than 10% of his entire text - to describing the exhaustive focus-group research employed by the creators of Sesame Street as they sought to sequence material in their show in such a way as to rivet the attention of children. Similarly, in his discussion of smoking, he tells us much more than we need to hear about the biology of nicotine addition, and he tends to run on like this about every topic he introduces. I actually found most of this interesting enough in its own right, but totally off the subject, and if we reduce The Tipping Point to it's relevant substance, what we would have is nothing much more than a short, provocative essay. Having said all that, I still enjoyed the book and recommend it. Mr. Gladwell is an excellent writer, and the book is lively and easy to get through, digressions and all. It's also been hugely successful, introducing the title phase into contemporary business jargon and illustrating the author's thesis by creating a kind of literary tipping point of its own. However, it would be interesting to see the main ideas stripped of the pop veneer and explored in greater depth at some point in the future.
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Summary: Does not deliver, this book is just a Hype
Review: The author goes into different tangents not keeping focus on the subject matter. For instance, talks about channel capacity(a psychological phenomenon), no relavence to the chapter or the topic.
The author says a simple thing in so many words. The book could have been written in 5 pages than 200. Also the writer's use of illustrations was poor.
The only insightful point that I got from the book is - "Word of mouth marketing has become very effective. In most cases it is more effective than the conventional methods of marketing"
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