Home :: Books :: Health, Mind & Body  

Arts & Photography
Audio CDs
Audiocassettes
Biographies & Memoirs
Business & Investing
Children's Books
Christianity
Comics & Graphic Novels
Computers & Internet
Cooking, Food & Wine
Entertainment
Gay & Lesbian
Health, Mind & Body

History
Home & Garden
Horror
Literature & Fiction
Mystery & Thrillers
Nonfiction
Outdoors & Nature
Parenting & Families
Professional & Technical
Reference
Religion & Spirituality
Romance
Science
Science Fiction & Fantasy
Sports
Teens
Travel
Women's Fiction
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

List Price: $14.95
Your Price: $10.17
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 .. 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 >>

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: A great book spoiled
Review: Gladwell has several fascinating ideas. However the book suffers from poor writing, and from considering many issues closed (ie the theory of Judith Harris on how peers influence children more than parents are presented as Gospel truth) Its a pity, since for The New Yorker Gladwell is a witty, thought-provoking author with a quicksilver intelligence, but in this book he takes 200+ pages to tell us something which can be summarised on a A4 sheet. Actually, what the writing style reminded me most was of a book like "Unlimited Power" by Anthony Robbins - I think the marketeers have had a heavy influence on the dumbing down. Gladwell's basic thesis - that tiny things not only make big differences, but make the biggest differences - has the makings of a fascinating book - if it was better written and, ironically, didn't take itself as seriously as this one.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A fun, thought-provoking read...
Review: I would imagine one would need to be in the right mood to enjoy Gladwell's The Tipping Point. While employing random and, at times, disjointed examples with wildly creative comparisons, Gladwell amuses the reader interested in an entertaining description of a social phenomenum. However, for the reader seeking strong proof and sound logic and reasoning, the book will surely disappointment. Gladwell is exploring something abstract and largely theoretical, and while his examples certainly enlighten and entertain, the approach falls short from achieving any strong objective proof. That said, the literature is thought-provoking, and in the concluding chapter, particularly inspirational. Finally, while some might find the careful signposting of main points tedious or pedantic, I found the simple organization refreshing and quite clear. This is a fast read, written in a style similar to Dale Carnegie's classic, How to Win Friends and Influence People--light on strong proof, heavy on amusing anecdotes and entertaining description. I recommend as an enjoyable, fun read.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Engaging
Review: I found Gladwell's book engaging, but I am not sure that he gave it his best effort. There were many "studies" Gladwell refered to where I would ask myself "What does this have to do with his thesis?" I felt like the author had heard about some study, found it interesting, and placed it in his book making very stretched and awkwardly fitting ties to his general point.

The redemptive characteristic of the book is Gladwell's voice. This alone is worth the price of the book. His tone reminded me of the "This American Life" radio shows on National Public Radio. Gladwell keeps you moving and the reader is sort of hypnotized by his cadence. He's a fine writer. I hope he produces many more interesting books. Please pick up a copy of this book for yourself. You will enjoy it. Thank you Mr. Gladwell.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Something Smells Here
Review: Look, every time someone writes an objection to this book, someone else writes a lengthy--and annoynomous tribute that appears to be the work of a professional. It seems to me that it is not only casual readers who are contributing their comments here, but publicists and promoters. As an earlier critic pointed out, this book is being pushed mightily by its publisher, who invested heavily in it. Making this a best seller is job number one for these folks, but as many commenters have noted, few serious professional critics have taken more than passing notice of this book. (Rather than reading the isolated blurbs offered here, I suggest readers turn to the full text of reviews appearing in, for example, the New York Times and Salon.) It seems to me that someone is making sure that any criticism of Tipping Point on this site is blotted out by a stream of raves. This is neither fair to the reader nor, for that matter, really honest.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Thought provoking and lucidly written
Review: Perhaps because of the kind of work that I do, or the experiences that I've had, the concepts in this book rang particularly true with me.

Briefly, my take-away's were that 1) most things don't happen in rational, linear ways...even though this is exactly how most of us look at the world; 2) small changes is how we communicate, who we communicate to, and the message being communicated can make a massive difference in what and how well the message is heard; 3) in general, small things can and do make a big difference - the seemingly insignificant can be EXACTLY the opposite; 4) there a types of people who can and do have a dramatic impact on trends and messages; and 5) size matters in a really big way where companies or groups of people are concerned.

The Tipping Point helped me make sense and generally be much more clear about some phenomena that I have been exposed to. It also introduced me to several concepts that found immediate purchase in my direct experience with people and with various organizations.

Besides being valuable, I found the book both well written and entertaining. My only complaint centers around flow and transitions ...I sometimes found myself asking how what I was reading related to the rest of the book. But eventually, it always did. The case studies and examples given are interesting and well-presented.

I think this is a worthwhile read even if you don't agree with the content. If you do, you'll likely be looking for ways in which to apply it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Ideas Will Stick
Review: A provocative read! Unlike many, who prefer a more simplistic focus on one element, this author recognizes the complex, intertwining forces impacting upon our society and is willing to challenge commonly held beliefs. That which seems trivial at the moment may be key to momentous change. Unlike many books, which focus primarily on events of the present and thus will soon be obsolete, this book seems more enduring in its usefulness and ability to enlighten; the social theories espoused herein could be applied as well to a United States of 1776 as to modern day America.

His comments on infuential personalities, for example, have a timeless quality to them, as do the claims of any valid psychology. His remarks on "connectors" and "salesmen" resonate with many of the descriptions of presidential temperaments in Keirsey and Choiniere's also timeless book "Presidential Temperaments", where many politiicians indeed prove to be well connected "Guardians" or charismatic, energetically persuasive "Artisans".

This is a book to be read several times - the first time for an overview of the ideas and then, provoked by interest, with deeper thought about the ramifications and implications of the proposed concepts.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Pop-Psych Trash
Review: This is pop-psych trash at it's worst. I gave away my copy because I'm embarrassed to have people see it on my bookshelves.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Brings 'Sticky' Ideas to a Nexus
Review: I read this book in part of one day - it's a good, quick read. Unlike some of the people who didn't care for the book - I never read the New Yorker article. It may be that the book doesn't add enough new info to excite folks who have read that article. But to me the book threw out a good number of new ideas and concepts very quickly and very clearly. I found his ability to draw a nexus between things that, on the surface seem very divergent, was very interesting, and he did it smoothly, without jumping around a lot.

The thrust of the book is that there are three things that can converge to bring about dramatic and perhaps unexpectedly fast changes in our society. These are the context (the situational environment - especially when it's near the balance or 'tipping point'), the idea, and the people involved. His point is that very small changes in any or several of the context, the quality of the idea (which he calls 'stickiness', ie how well the idea sticks), or whether the idea reaches a very small group of key people can trigger a dramatic epidemic of change in society.

"In a given process or system some people matter more than others." (p.19). "The success of any kind of social epidemic is heavily dependent on the involvement of people with a particular and rare set of social gifts." (p.33).

He divides these gifted people into three categories: Connectors, Mavens and Salespeople. "Sprinkled among every walk of life ... are a handful of people with a truly extraordinary knack of making friends and acquaintances. They are Connectors." (p. 41). "I always keep up with people." (p. 44 quoting a "Connector"). "in the case of Connectors, their ability to span many different worlds is a function of something intrinsic to their personality, some combination of curiosity, self-confidence, sociability, and energy." (p.49). "The point about Connectors is that by having a foot in so many different worlds they have the effect of bringing them all together." (p.51).

"The word Maven comes from the Yiddish, and it means one who accumulates knowledge." (p. 60). "The fact that Mavens want to help, for no other reason than because they like to help, turns out to be an awfully effective way of getting someone's attention." (p.67). "The one thing that a Maven is not is a persuader. To be a Maven is to be a teacher. But it is also, even more emphatically to be a student." (p.69).

"There is also a select group of people -- Salesmen -- with the skills to persuade us when we are unconvinced of what we are hearing." (p. 70). He goes on to describe an individual named Tom Gau who is a Salesman. "He seems to have some indefinable trait, something powerful and contagious and irresistible that goes beyond what comes out of his mouth, that makes people who meet him want to agree with him. It's energy. It's enthusiasm. It's charm. It's likability. It's all those things and yet something more." (p. 73).

He then goes into the importance of actually gathering empirical data about ideas, and not just relying on theory or assumption to determine quality, or as he calls it, 'stickiness.' He gives examples of where assumptions have been debunked with data. "Kids don't watch when they are stimulated and look away when they are bored. They watch when they understand and look away when they are confused." (p.102). "Children actually don't like commercials as much as we thought they did." (p. 118) "The driving force for a preschooler is not a search for novelty, like it is with older kids, it's a search for understanding and predictability." (p. 126) Hence why your three year old can watch those Barney videos over and over until the tape breaks - it becomes predictable after the third or fourth viewing. This is probably also why Barney suddenly falls out of favor when predictability is less important than novelty.

Finally, there's a point he makes he calls the rule of 150. He starts with some British anthropologists idea that brain size, neocortex size actually, is related to the ability to handle the complexities of social groups. The larger the neocortex, the larger the social group that can be managed. She then charts primate neocortex size against known average social group sizes for various primates, other than humans. Then she plugs human neocortex size into the equation, and out pops 147.8, or about 150. Now that would be not so interesting, except that he goes on to talk about this religious group, the Hutterites. They are clannish like the Amish or Mennonites, and they have a rule that when a colony approaches 150, they split into two and start a new one. He follows that by noting that Military organizations generally split companies at 150-200. And then he talks about Gore - the company that makes Goretex, among other things. They have a ~150 employee per plant rule.

"At a bigger size you have to impose complicated hierarchies and rules and regulations and formal measures to try to command loyalty and cohesion. But below 150...it is possible to achieve the same goals infomally." (p.180)

"When things get larger than that, people become strangers to one another." (p.181)

"Crossing the 150 line is a small change that can make a big difference." (p. 183)

On the whole, I thought the book sparked thought and converstaion, and will make me look at life and business a little differently. To me that's a good book.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: great exposition of a trivial point
Review: C.P. Snow popularized the notion of 2 worlds, one scientificand one humanistic. Nowhere is the existence of these twin worldsmore obvious than in the praise heaped on this book; one trade reviewer quoted by amazon.com says it "offers an incisive and piquant theory..."

What, you might ask, is this undiscovered idea? Why its the principle of exponential growth, the idea that the new amount of some quantity being measured is proportional to the initial amount rather than a constant (linear) increase. This is captured in the mathematics that describes how epidemics spread, populations grow (well known to Malthus more than a century ago), radioactivity decays, and so on. And this idea lends the book its title; in an epidemic when the ratio exceeds 1 the infection will spread rapidly; hence it has passed the "tipping point".

I don't mean to demean Gladwell's book; it is actually quite well written and loaded with interesting examples of this principle at play. For this alone the book is worth reading.

But what is more illuminating than the examples Gladwell gives is what the critical response to the book says about the mathematical illiteracy of today's intellectual. Exponential growth & decay is a trivial concept to anyone who's ever taken a serious science class, even at the high school level. So the response by the learned community to so simple a concept is a profound confirmation of the reality of Snow's observation. Apparently this simple concept has escaped the intellectuals who shower accolades on this book for providing such fresh insight and perspective.

In the end I am both saddened and gladdened by this book. Gladdened because the book provides novel examples of a well-known principle in action. Saddened because the intellectual world is so surprised by a concept from the scientific/mathematic world as simple as exponential growth.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Smart Writing
Review: Mr. Gladwell seems to be able to write about anything and do it well. I think this is the kind of material my friend Bob could build an hour long TV show around.


<< 1 .. 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 >>

© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates