Book Review: The Tipping Point

For Christmas I got a nice stack of books from my Amazon wish list. One was the popular book from Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point. Tipping Point is a book that explores the causes of epidemics and when I say “epidemics” I mean all kinds of epidemics — biological, marketing, social, and so on. Through examples such as the midnight ride of Paul Revere, the crime rate drop in NY in the mid-nineties and the popularity of certain children television shows Gladwell explains his three rules of epidemics:

  • The Law of the Few —- in the world of epidemics certain people are more influential than others. Epidemics are rarely if every exponential (I told two friends, and they told two friends…); they are usually made up of people who fit one of three different profiles: connectors, mavens or salesmen. Knowing how these people interact to create epidemics is both interesting and powerful.
  • The Stickiness Factor —- Stickiness can be thought of as being memorable or something that can cause action. Lots of big companies try to become sticky by throwing multimillion dollar ad campaigns behind their message, but there are smaller, subtler, and easier ways to accomplish stickiness. There are some great examples in the book.
  • The Power of Context —- One of the biggest sections in the book talks about context. To be put bluntly, we are highly influenced from our surroundings, usually more so than we like to admit. Through even more examples Gladwell explains how small changes to our surroundings and the context of our message can make a huge impact.

At it’s heart I like to think of The Tipping Point as a Sociology book (though an easier read than the textbook I remember from college). In particular I found it’s analysis of epidemics to be very truthful and as a web developer, blogger, technology enthusiast, who has seen seen lots of “epidemics” in the community come and go, I think I’ll find Gladwell’s perspective useful in the future. I’d recommend Tipping Point to anyone who has a message to sell, in particular those who are looking to get the message out in a grassroots style. The Tipping Point is available from Amazon in hardcover ($16.35) or paperback ($8.97).

Posted on: February 17, 2006 – 5:51 pm

2 Comments

  1. Andy Lee wrote:

    I found his next book, “Blink,” very interesting as well.

  2. Mike Zornek wrote:

    I actually got “Blink” for Christmas as well. I have a few books ahead of it in the queue but am anxious to read it as well.

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