Customer Reviews

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

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Some voracious reading of research on...

(1) "Network externalities" and "network effects" from economics and
(2) WOM (word of mouth) research from social/cognitive psychology

...and shamelessly rehashing them with a doozy touchy-feely spin on "small things can inspire big things" a la "Pay it Forward" (that Helen Hunt/Kevin Spacey rigmarole) -- and lo and behold, you have a tipping point for a book that people are stomping over each other to buy and magically provoke their thinking about marketing or sociological phenomena.

Indeed every once in a while we need a business book that summarizes and makes sense of all that goes on in academia, so even such blatant intellectual debauchery would be fine as long as the BASIC professional integrity of attribution was upheld. The very least one can expect from such a self-proclaimed "biography of an idea" endeavour is an honest acknowledgement of WHERE the idea came from.

As though it was not embarrassing enough that epithets like "maven" and "connector" are well established in WOM or network externality research since nearly 20 years, we were also fed with the MOST commonly used illustrations -- faxes becoming important because other people had faxes, or some quaint fashion catching up overnight (Hush Puppies in this case, but it could be any number of things), or how broadband has swept our world, or the success of a TV show -- these are all primetime textbook examples to explain the very fundamental concepts of network externality in ECON 101. Some arcane mention of epidemiologists' theories does not count because the whole hypothesis here is to provide something that is "beyond the world of medicine and diseases". Not one mention of the "Network Externality" in the book or in the glossary at the end.

To its minor credit, the book is written with a readable flow although expect to have each and every minutiae explained in a "for dummies" style. For e.g., the perfectly simple notion that yawning is visually and aurally contagious is explained over 2 pages of relatively small print with about 100 mentions of the word yawn. Yawn. Such excruciating fleshing out of material is understandable of course, given how little of substance there really was in this "thinking" to begin with.

The text wallows in its conflicting logical morass. Remember, "small things" are supposed to make a big difference. A winding 40 pages are devoted to crime combat in NY under a newly appointed police chief. Forgive me if this concerted annual effort by a legitimate full-fledged police force does NOT sound like a "small thing" to me.

We are told "What must underlie successful epidemics is a bedrock belief that change is possible". Unfortunately, all the examples Gladwell cites such as a sweeping shoe vogue, faxes becoming popular -- these are all a matter of happenstance instead of a concerted effort by individuals at a point in time. Such is indeed the true nature of contagious phenomenons as he himself mentions at the outset, there is no "bedrock belief" until afterwards when someone sits and analyzes the event. I could also hypothesize that a lot of these mini-revolutions happen when an optimal chain of events is accidentally (unintentionally) spurred on by some triggers in society/environment etc, but that is for another day.

As though this were not enough we are treated to semi-pompous implications. For e.g., page 131: "There is something PROFOUNDLY counter-intuitive in the definition of stickiness that emerges from all these examples". Really? Would have been nice if it were apparent instead of having us hit on the head with it.

Come to think of it a "big effect" is a pretty flaky/subjective concept anyway. How could this supposed big effect be sustained? Where are hush puppies now? As for NY's crime rate, many experts such as Andrew Karmen from CUNY (John Jay) believe that the drop in crime rates in NY in 1980s or 90s is insignificant, homicides in the city have risen 10-fold since 1950. How about faxes -- and their big effect being eaten by another big effect (email)?

What is most piquing though is that in a round-about way we are offered Polyanna solutions as a result of this 3-pronged theory of network externality. One priceless gem emerges when we are convinced how cleaning a subway system would be enough to solve crime rates (with the Bernie Goetz case as a lynchpin). My retorts won't fit this review.

Whether this is a legitimate business book or a mere avante-garde coffee table thoughtpiece, one would have at the least expected some sort of an organized framework to plan for these "small things" or to sustain the "big effects". None is forthcoming. As for me, the very fact that well-established research is packaged here in a 250-page drawl as a pretentiously seminal idea is quite a put-off in itself. A simple 5-6 page HBR article would have done the job just fine, but then that wouldn't make a lot of money for Gladwell, would it.

If you are in business and hope to use this stuff for a spiral marketing/branding effort, you'd do a lot better getting your hands on some WOM literature than this inchoate theoretical indulgence.

Highly over-rated material, this.

This book is presented as an explanation of what it is that might cause something to go from insignificance to ubiquity. It in fact does nothing of the sort and is actually just an amusing collection of stories.

It is well written as a social history, and has a light, journalistic style good for dipping into, but the reader is left absolutely none the wiser as to why any of it happened. I would therefore class it as pretty much a waste of anyone's time.

One thing that particularly annoyed me about this book is that chaos theory - a branch of mathematics almost 40 years old, for the analysis and prediction of exactly the sort of thing this book is wondering about - is mentioned only once: as a footnote.

That's like writing a book about why planets stay in orbit around the sun, and mentioning astrophysics as an aside.

... I found that I could not not review this book. After all, I am currently wearing Hush Puppies, and belong to a major religion that was born out of what Malcolm Gladwell might have described as a 'tipping point' thousands of years ago. In this impulse, Gladwell echoes the words of Margaret Mead, who once said 'Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.' This is the tipping point principle.

Gladwell's writing style is up-beat and popular - he is a staff writer for the New Yorker, and that style is clearly present in his writing here. Thus, those who appreciate the New Yorker will tend to like this book; those who don't, won't. Gladwell occasionally plays a bit loose with the documentation, and relies much more an anecdotal and consensus opinions than necessarily getting strong, documented proof. Then again, with a principle like the tipping point, this might not be the most important thing in any event - any hard, cold statistical data of the early Christian movement might have dismissed this wandering band of a dozen troublemakers as insignificant.

Some of Gladwell's conclusions are likewise problematic, again based on a more intuitive approach that will appeal to some and not to others. In particular, I would question his liberality of accepting drug use; while one might agree that the war on drugs goes in directions that are less helpful while other problems loom large, I'm not convinced (nor does Gladwell's argument seem very strong in this direction) that permitting or encouraging children this experience is the best course.

Some have begun describing the recent Hurricane Katrina disaster as a tipping point for the economy, but whether this will be a tipping point for good or bad, one cannot say. It is a sad fact of history that often disasters and wars are followed by periods of economic boom.

The term 'tipping point' actually comes from epidemiology, to describe the point at which virus and other infectious agents reach a critical mass sufficient to become an epidemic. The problem with this is that different viral and infectious agents have different tipping points given different conditions, so the idea of universally applying the concept of the tipping point becomes rather like the idea of the hundredth monkey, the idea in social consciousness construction that there is some sort of paradigm shift or mysterious shift in general thought and behaviour once it reaches a critical mass of people.

Do other people wear Hush Puppies now because I have doggedly insisted upon wearing mine since the 1970s (not the same pair, mind you)? Why did they fade out of fashion only to come back in? These are the kinds of issues that the tipping point cannot explain.

This is an interesting text, but more as an intellectual sideline rather than a serious attempt at formulating a universal principle of social behaviour.

It has given me new ways to look at old patterns that I have observed .... His organization and examples help me retain the concepts

Tipping Point is a painful book to read, painful especially to contemplate the patchwork of fill that turns what at best is a pop magazine article into a poor excuse for a book. Gladwell stabs at any theme he can possibly use to support his by no means new theory of tipping points. He hits one, perhaps, when he covers Rudy Giuliani's results in the City of New York, buts the rest are paler attempts. His comparison of Paul Revere with Dawes is over-romantic and downright silly. There's something profoundly patronizing about his tone of writing and his lack of any kind of wit.

A whole book to tell us that the author has identified situations when an idea or a fashion spreads with epidemic strength, and that he is still thinking about how and why this happens.
Guess what, all of us had already noticed in our daily lives how fashion trends and other things happen literally overnight - and all of us have tried to imagine how this was possible, and the answers, or potential answers, we came up with, are as good as those in the book.
The Tipping Point can be summarised in about 2-3 lines and is not worth reading.

Gladwell makes some interesting points in this book and explores several real world examples that tie into the general theme about the spread of epidemics through our society. But there is nothing revolutionary about the ideas in this book (other than Paul Revere) and it seems Gladwell really pushes to brand new buzzwords on old concepts. However he does a good job of getting you to think about how things become popular that you may just have ignored in the past. The best thing about this book are the stories he weaves into these concepts such as Roger Horchow, Blue's Clues vs Sesame Street, Gore-Tex, etc.

Obviously this book is directed towards a marketing audience. It is extremely light on examining in background detail on the studies he quotes or providing any sort of numerical analysis behind them. For instance his reference to collective memory studies makes no mention that it may be easier for couples to relate and solve problems compared to two individuals who have no history together and therefore would skew the data. Nor that the sample size for the study was incredibly small. I do believe there is something to transactive memory since for certain things that I don't need to know on a regular basis I associate people with certain groups of facts instead of spending time memorizing them myself.

Further some of the stories are slightly dubious. For instance Gladwell states that not until 1993 did Airwalk market beyond California when they pushed Foot Locker to carry the shoes. However I remember Airwalk being quite popular during the late eighties in rural western North Carolina where I grew up.

In the end I still found this book entertaining and walked away thinking about how things become popular in a different way. I would even rate this book higher if Gladwell would abridge this and cut out many of the repetitive or loosely tied stories in this book. Many of the points are obvious after the first tie-in and don't need an additional 20 or 30 pages of stories to drill it home.

The book is about the "tipping point", that is, that moment when an idea or social behaviour has reached a level where it "tips" and spreads like crazy.

The book makes sense about how these things happen by using three rules- The Law of the Few, The Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context. Taking three rules, then, the book uses them to explain seemingly puzzling epidemic situations in society such as teen smoking or bestsellers.

Fun and interesting, if this kind of topic appeals to you, you'll like the book- its well written and an easy read. Other books that might appeal to general interest readers include The Sixty-Second Motivator

As a fond reader of Malcolm Gladwell's articles in the New Yorker, I was anxious to read The Tipping Point, particularly in light of the buzz the book has been getting. I can see why the book is so popular. Gladwell uses extremely simple terms to define what he calls a "new" theory: that ideas and trends do not become popular through a gradual process; instead, they "tip," pushed beyond an invisible boundary where they spread rapidly, like an epidemic. Ideas and trends catch on for certain reasons, because the idea/trend is "sticky" or hits the right people (connectors, mavens, salesmen) in the right environment. Gladwell draws upon several interesting case studies and experiments, littering them throughout the book with the aim of backing up his premise.

The first problem with the book, though, is that this premise doesn't need any support. It is not a groundbreaking idea... sociologists have been describing this phenomenon for years, it's just that none of them has dumbed the idea down well enough for the book to become a bestseller... until now. Gladwell cites a great many sociological and psychological experiments which are admittedly very interesting; but what the results of the studies suggest is often up for debate, but Gladwell tells us that while some experts believe an experiment indicates x, the real meaning of the results is y. He then supports y without ever explaining why x is not a valid interpretation. I also found it irksome that he was constantly referring to his own experiences and group of friends, rather than taking himself out of the picture (this is the difference between real investigative studies and pop-sociology, this book falling into the latter category). I also wish he would have found more interesting trends to examine than children's television shows and footware (with only a handful of fully fleshed-out case studies, two are focused on children's tv: Sesame Street and Blue's Clues; and two on shoes: Hush Puppies and Airwalks). Towards the end of the book he includes a very irritating chapter on smoking which compares cigarrettes to suicide (the sections on suicide were interesting, but the sections on smoking sounded like a lecture from a high school guidance counselor).

Again, the book has some very good points and can be put to practical use. But in reading it I had the feeling that Gladwell believes he has a more revolutionary theory on his hands than he actually does.

Despite all the clamor and fandom, Gladwell's thesis is essentially nonsense. What he claims, in essence, is that a few well-placed and influential people can be the critial factor in social change. He attempts to prove this by working backwards, finding the "early adopters" and pointing to them as the critical factor in a new trend, movement or whatever.

Careful and thoughtful readers might ask themselves: If these early adopters are the important factor in new trends, shouldn't they be the critical factor in more than one new trend? And interestingly enough, they are not. And that is the flaw in the argument.

Looking at any movement you're going to find that *someone* had to be first, even if if the growth of the movement was totally random. The real critical factor in the growth of new trends is not the people who are influential, but rather the opposite- people who are very easily influenced. They're the ones who follwo every new trend, or buy every new consumer good. And this is something that social scientists- and Madison Avenue- have known for decades.