"The best way to understand the dramatic transformation of unknown books into bestsellers, or the rise of teenage smoking, or the phenomena of word of mouth or any number of the other mysterious changes that mark everyday life," writes Malcolm Gladwell, "is to think of them as epidemics. Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do." Although anyone familiar with the theory of memetics will recognize this concept, Gladwell's The Tipping Point has quite a few interesting twists on the subject.

For example, Paul Revere was able to galvanize the forces of resistance so effectively in part because he was what Gladwell calls a "Connector": he knew just about everybody, particularly the revolutionary leaders in each of the towns that he rode through. But Revere "wasn't just the man with the biggest Rolodex in colonial Boston," he was also a "Maven" who gathered extensive information about the British. He knew what was going on and he knew exactly whom to tell. The phenomenon continues to this day--think of how often you've received information in an e-mail message that had been forwarded at least half a dozen times before reaching you.

Time Waster

I ordered this book because, judging from the reviews, it seemed potentially interesting. After reading 40 pages into the book I truly wondered what the point was. We all know little things can make a big difference. We learned that very early in life. So what!

I suppose it was written for all the jaded intellectuals who need a 300 page tome to understand the concept that a little match can start a big fire. Wow.

One star for the cover.

an interesting read on many levels

The Tipping Point is a book by Malcolm Gladwell. Tipping point is a sociological term that refers to the moment when something unique becomes common.

The book seeks to explain "social epidemics", or sudden and often chaotic changes from one state to another. For example, he cites the drop in the New York City crime rate in the 1990s. The ability to generate these epidemics is highly-sought in marketing. They are similar, in their mathematical properties, to disease epidemics.

Gladwell identifies three types of people who have the power to produce social epidemics:

Connectors: Those with wide social circles. They are the "hubs" of the human social network and responsible for the small world phenomenon.

Mavens are knowledgeable people. While most consumers wouldn't know if a product were priced above the market rate by, say, 10 percent, mavens would. Bloggers who detect false claims in the media could also be considered mavens.

Salesmen are charismatic people with powerful negotiation skills. They exert "soft" influence rather than forceful power. Their source of influence may be the tendency of others, subconsciously, to imitate them rather than techniques of conscious persuasion.

Other key concepts in The Tipping Point are:

The Law of the Few. Those with the skill sets described above have disproportionate influence over the spread of social phenomena, and without their aid, such dissemination is unlikely ever to occur.

Stickiness: Ideas or products found attractive or interesting by others will grow exponentially for some time.

The Power of Context: Human behavior is strongly influenced by external variables of context. For example, "zero tolerance" efforts to combat minor crimes such as fare-beating and vandalism on the New York subway led to a decline in more violent crimes; the perception of increased vigilance altered the behavior and attitudes of the passengers. Gladwell also describes the bystander effect.

The Magic Number 150. In sociology, it is commonly posited that an individual can only have genuine social relationships with 150 people. Likewise, groups larger than 150 are prone to fragmentation, and it is often best for the group's health that it split. Most extant hunter-gatherer villages, as well as military companies also stay just shy of this number.

The New Product Cycle: According to the model of Everett Rogers, there is a bell curve of adaptation to the new phenomenon: first are innovators, then early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. Each category corresponds to one standard deviation worth of width, and the apex of the bell curve is between the early and late majorities. Innovators lie 2 or more standard deviations to the left of the mean, while early adopters are between 1 and 2 standard devations to the left, and so on. Laggards, the last group to adopt a new fad, lie at least 1 standard deviation to the right of the mean, thus make up about 16 percent of the population.

If I haven't bored you to this point then you'll definately enjoy The Tipping Point. Please vote "yes" this review was helpful.

Truely amazing

This is truely a fascinating book, it's amazing how the author has found the relationship between epedemic and widely accepted successfull products or ideas.

First Author talks about the three rules of epdemics; laws of the few, the stickiness factor and Power of context.

First rule emphasizes how only handful of people can start an epedemic, interesting, right? The same rule applies to the product or idea's success, the basic idea here is that there are exceptional people out there who can make product penetrate in the society just like an epedimic.
we know the concept of "Early adapters" and "Early followers" from the book 'crossing the chasm",the same concept has been presented in a whole different perspective.

Second law is the stickiness factor, here author talks about how some of the ideas can be contagious if presented properly, when this happens, the idea or product moves very fast in the society because it gets stuck in the mind. Remember some of the TV commercial that you can't take your mind off, no matter you like them or not, they find a place in your mind :) and often you end up discussing those ideas with your friends.

Third law is Power of Context, it talks about the sensitivity of epedemic or idea on conditions and circumstances of the times and places where they occur.

At the end of the book there is a case study to help you understand the concepts.

Hope the review helps you. Have fun reading the book.