In The Tipping Point, Gladwell explains why some ideas or behaviours or products spread quickly – start epidemics – and others don’t. It’s an interesting and fun read and useful for anyone starting up a new business or wanting to promote a new product or idea. He explains how ideas, products and messages spread in the same way that viruses are spread. Whether viruses become an epidemic depends on the behaviour of those who are contagious and the environment. Small changes can have a large effect. Changes can happen quickly – the moment that it all changes is called The Tipping Point.
Epidemics don’t follow the 80:20 rule – a small % of people does all the work. For an idea to become an epidemic, its need exceptional people to spread the word, a ‘sticky’ or memorable message and the right context or environment.
Gladwell calls the exceptional people Connectors – who have a gift for bringing the word together and have a knack of making friends and acquaintances, Mavens – who love to figure how to get something and then want to tell you about it too and Salesmen – who have the skills to persuade us.
These people can only help if the message or product is memorable – the ‘stickiness factor’.
Also epidemics are sensitive to the conditions and circumstances of the times and places in which they occur – the ‘power of context’.
Gladwell’s analysis of group behaviour is interesting – how small, close knit groups have the power to magnify the epidemic potential of a message or idea. Why you should limit organization sizes to 150 – so you know people well enough that what they think of you matters.
Worth reading!
[ReviewAZON asin="0316346624" display="fullpost"]
