Book Review: The Tipping Point

In this brilliant book, Malcolm Gladwell explains and analysis the ‘tipping point’, that magic moment when ideas, trends, and social behavior cross a threshold, tip, and spread like wildfire. Taking a look behind the surface of many familiar occurrences in our everyday world. Gladwell explains the fascinating social dynamics that cause rapid change.

Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or drop in the crime rate. This widely acclaimed bestseller, in which Malcolm Gladwell explores and brilliantly illuminates the tipping point phenomenon, is already changing the way people throughout the world think about selling products and disseminating ideas.

Gladwell introduces us to the particular personality types who are natural pollinators of new ideas and trends, the people who create the phenomenon of word of mouth. He analyzes fashion trends, smoking, children television, direct mail, and the early days of the American Revolution for clues about making ideas infectious, and visits a religious commune, a successful high tech company and one of the world greatest salesmen to show how to start and sustain social epidemics.

There are three principles of social epidemics in the book: the law of the few, the stickiness factor and the power of context. The law of the few is roughly comparable to the 80/20 rule, that 20% of the people do 80% of the work. Gladwell attributes the success of social epidemics to the efforts to three types of individuals: connectors, mavens and salesmen. The Tipping point is a powerful and fascinating book that cuts across a variety of fields of interest. Within, Gladwell constructs and details ideas that change the way one perceive social trends one might not otherwise think to question.