The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

I just finished reading The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell and it is truely a very good book, something already hinted at by the huge amount of quotes from other reviewers at the beginning of the book. The book is worth it for the examples of the theory presented alone, which are sometimes interesting and sometimes downright scary. It talks about how epidemics take off, how things suddenly become “in” again and sell amazingly well… and how they loose it.

As a rough run-down, he argues that there is first of all something he calls “The Law of the Few”, being about special people that have a big impact on things. These are connectors (people that tend to know a lot more people than average), mavens (people that tend to know everything, that try things out first) and salesmen (who have a way with people, making a sale). You need all three kind of people for the epidemic, or your product, to take off. Lots of examples are, as always, in the book.

Then you have “The Stickiness Factor”, which is about the fact that whatever you are looking at, it has to stick, it has to be remembered. Also important is “The Power of Context”, meaning that you can’t look at things in isolation, but rather only within their environment. Here he talks about how getting rid of graffiti on trains helped to reduce violence in New York, which deep down really means that people are not evil by nature but that a surrounding that tells them anything goes, that sets bad examples, influences people to feel ok to act a certain way. This is very simplified but again, great detail in the book.

Then there is, again as part of context, the magic number 150, being the amount of people who are likely closely linked with. The group is rarely bigger and things really start to fall appart when it is. This is one of the reasons why Gore Associates, the people behind GoreTex and other things, break up teams of more than 150 into smaller groups, even if it means setting up a second fab!

Then follow several case studies on things like Smoking and Airwalk shoes. Really check it out. It’s thought provoking to say the least.