The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

Posted by Miles Evans

Best Marketing Books Review Part I: The Tipping Point

Skip ahead to some of Amazon’s reviews of The Tipping Point or continue reading...

Malcolm Gladwell needs little introduction as he has written for The New Yorker since 1996 and was recently selected as one of Time’s 100 most influential people for 2005. He is the author of two bestselling books: "The Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Big Difference," (2000) and "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking" (2005), both of which were number one New York Times bestsellers. I will review Blink as well but for now let’s focus on his first book The Tipping Point.

The Tipping Point is a term used by epidemiologists for the moment when an epidemic is created. The flu for example can be held in check for some time without becoming an epidemic, but at some point it often infects too many people and things get much worse very quickly. Malcolm surmises that the tipping point we see in viruses and other places can also be applied to marketing and ideas. Starbucks, Hush Puppies, and Apple are all examples of companies who have reached the tipping point one or more times. The trick is how did they do it?

Gladwell breaks the tipping point effect down to its most basic components, the individuals who spread the idea, and explains how their behavior gets the ball rolling. Chapter 2, The Law of the Few, talks about "connectors, mavens and salesmen", or three types of people who help spread ideas.

Connectors are the socialites or the folks who know a lot of other people, and can spread an idea through many communities quickly. Their mere presence can make an idea contagious. Gladwell devises a test he uses to discover how to determine if someone is a connector or not and found these types of people to be extremely rare, which makes them central to understanding how tipping points are reached.

Mavens are the information gatherers of the social network. They evaluate the messages that come through the network and they pass their evaluations on to others, along with the messages. Many of us may be Mavens for our particular area of interest.

Salesman are what the name implies. These are the persuaders of society and Gladwell covers why these types of people seem to have a better ability to sell us on an idea or product so well. The ability to persuade strangers to accept a message is why salesmen are crucial in tipping epidemics.

Further along Gladwell discusses the stickiness of ideas and why some concepts are remembered and passed on easier. He describes how small changes in presentation can make huge differences and gives far reaching examples from Sesame Street and Blues Clues to suicide epidemics in Indonesia. Finally he covers the need for context by which a true tipping point can be reached.

The reason this book resonated with me is because as the author moves though the subjects of connectors, stickiness and context he constantly draws from sociological experiments, nature, and private studies to effectively illustrate his points. This is the gold in this book. Some of the examples are quite shocking and extremely useful to anyone involved in marketing on any medium or trying to spread a new idea.

Alright so this book is obviously highly recommended. It is also a cheap $9 paperback as it is a few years old. Do not equate a few years old with outdated. If you are looking for what it takes to tip the scales in your direction or what it takes to just make an idea profitable, then this book is a must read.

Check out some of Amazon’s reviews of The Tipping Point. There are 600+!

More information on Malcolm can be had at his website.

Posted Apr 21, 2006 at 01:38 AM | Permalink | Trackback URL | Del.icio.us | DIGG!