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The Tipping Point
Malcolm Gladwell, 2000
Little, Brown & Company
304 pp.

In Brief
Defining that precise moment when a trend becomes a trend, Malcolm Gladwell probes the surface of everyday occurrences to reveal some surprising dynamics behind explosive social changes. He examines the power of word-of-mouth and explores how very small changes can directly affect popularity. Perceptive and imaginative, The Tipping Point is a groundbreaking book destined to overturn conventional thinking in business, sociological, and policy-making arenas. (From the publisher.)

More
Why did crime in New York drop so suddenly in the mid-'90s? How does an unknown novelist end up a bestselling author? Why is teenage smoking out of control, when everyone knows smoking kills? What makes TV shows like Sesame Street so good at teaching kids how to read? Why did Paul Revere succeed with his famous warning?

   Malcolm Gladwell, a staff writer for The New Yorker, has been studying trends like these for years and has written several articles for the magazine that have developed into his new book, The Tipping Point. According to Gladwell, the Tipping Point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. Just as a sick individual in a crowded store can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push start a fashion trend or cause the popularity of a new restaurant to take off overnight or cause crime or drug use to taper off. In The Tipping Point, Gladwell shows how very minor adjustments in products and ideas can make them more likely to become immensely popular. He reveals how easy it is to cause group behavior to tip in a desirable direction by making small changes in our immediate environment.

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

   This is a book that should be read by everyone in business, politics, marketing and advertising, as well as by anyone interested in trends, fashion, fads, policy making, and human behavior. In other words, all of us.—Emily Burg (From Barnes & Noble.)

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About the Author

• Birth—September 3, 1963
• Where—England, U.K.; reared in Canada
• Education—B.A., University of Toronto, Canada
• Currently—New York, New York, USA


At the start of the 21st century, a new form of narrative nonfiction emerged, blending science, sociology, and pop culture into a compulsively readable hybrid genre marked by originality, accessibility, and a breezy, anecdotal style. As much as any single writer, and perhaps more than most, journalist and bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell has helped to forge that genre.

Born in the U.K. and raised in rural Canada, Gladwell stumbled into journalism purely by accident. After college, he wanted to pursue a career in advertising; but when he was unable to find work in that field, he took a job with the conservative U.S. monthly The American Spectator. In 1987, he joined The Washington Post, where he reported on business and science for nearly a decade. Then, in 1996, Tina Brown hired him to work for The New Yorker. (Brown left the magazine in 1998. Gladwell is still on staff.)

Almost from the beginning, Gladwell's work for The New Yorker attracted attention. Of particular interest was a piece he wrote in June 1996 about a mysterious and dramatic drop in the New York City crime rate. Drawing its title -- and its argument -- from the field of epidemiology, "The Tipping Pont" described a single moment in time when the momentum for change becomes virtually unstoppable. The piece generated an enormous reader response, and Gladwell began to explore the applications of the principle to other sorts of changes -- ideas, behaviors, new products, etc. In 2000, he published a full-length book that reached a tipping point of its own and logged a spectacular 28 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.

Readers loved The Tipping Point for its clear, easy-to-understand language and examples drawn from real life; but it was the business community, always anxious to spot the next big trend, that recognized the relevance of Gladwell's ideas to sales, marketing, and public relations. (As a result of his popularity with this group, he has become a much-in-demand public speaker.) Then, in 2005, Gladwell published Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, an entertaining look at the role of snap judgments and intuition in decision making. Although it did not achieve the overwhelming success of his first book, Blink, too, became a No. 1 bestseller.

Extras
Gladwell's English father is a civil engineer and his mother is a Jamaican-born psychotherapist.

Growing up in Canada at a time when the country was essentially a socialist nation, Gladwell was a self-professed right-wing kid. "Being a conservative was the kind of fun, radical thing to do," he told The New York Times. He notes that his politics have changed over the years.

When Gladwell decided to grow his formerly short and conservatively cut hair into an Afro, he began to receive special, unwanted attention (more speeding tickets, additional checks in airport security lines, etc.). These experiences got him thinking about how first impressions lead to snap judgments—which inspired his bestseller Blink.

Starbucks' founder Howard Schultz publicly attributed his company's success to the tipping-point phenomenon.

In 2005, Time Magazine named Gladwell one of the 100 Most Influential People. (Author info from Barnes and Noble.)

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Critics Say. . .
The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell, is a lively, timely and engaging study of fads... Gladwell, who made his career in journalism as a science writer, has a knack for explaining psychological experiments clearly; The Tipping Point is worth reading just for what it tells us about how we try to make sense out of the world.
Alan Wolfe - New York Times Book Review



An imaginative...treatise that's likely...to generate some buzz...it's hard not to be persuaded by Gladwell's thesis. Not only does he assemble a fascinating mix of facts in support of his theory...but he also manages to weave everything into a cohesive explanation of human behavior. What's more, we appreciate the optimism of a theory that supports, as another pundit once called it, the power of one...there's little doubt that the material will keep you awake.
Business Week



The Tipping Point is propelled by its author's voracious but always amiable curiosity...Gladwell has a knack for rendering complex theories in clear, elegant prose, and he makes a charismatic tour guide. As a result, the book's constant movement from one cultural realm to the next...never produces any literary motion sickness.
San Francisco Chronicle Book Review



The premise of this facile piece of pop sociology has built-in appeal: little changes can have big effects; when small numbers of people start behaving differently, that behavior can ripple outward until a critical mass or "tipping point" is reached, changing the world. Gladwell's thesis that ideas, products, messages and behaviors "spread just like viruses do" remains a metaphor as he follows the growth of "word-of-mouth epidemics" triggered with the help of three pivotal types. These are Connectors, sociable personalities who bring people together; Mavens, who like to pass along knowledge; and Salesmen, adept at persuading the unenlightened. (Paul Revere, for example, was a Maven and a Connector). Gladwell's applications of his "tipping point" concept to current phenomena--such as the drop in violent crime in New York, the rebirth of Hush Puppies suede shoes as a suburban mall favorite, teenage suicide patterns and the efficiency of small work units--may arouse controversy. For example, many parents may be alarmed at his advice on drugs: since teenagers' experimentation with drugs, including cocaine, seldom leads to hardcore use, he contends, "We have to stop fighting this kind of experimentation. We have to accept it and even embrace it." While it offers a smorgasbord of intriguing snippets summarizing research on topics such as conversational patterns, infants' crib talk, judging other people's character, cheating habits in schoolchildren, memory sharing among families or couples, and the dehumanizing effects of prisons, this volume betrays its roots as a series of articles for the New Yorker, where Gladwell is a staff writer: his trendy material feels bloated and insubstantial in book form.
Publishers Weekly



This genial book by New Yorker contributor Gladwell considers the elements needed to make a particular idea take hold. The "tipping point" (not a new phrase) occurs when something that began small (e.g., a few funky kids in New York's East Village wearing Hush Puppies) turns into something very large indeed (millions of Hush Puppies are sold). It depends on three rules: the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context. Episodes subjected to this paradigm here include Paul Revere's ride, the creation of the children's TV program Sesame Street, and the influence of subway shooter Bernie Goetz. The book has something of a pieced-together feel (reflecting, perhaps, the author's experience writing shorter pieces) and is definitely not the stuff of deep sociological thought. It is, however, an entertaining read that promises to be well publicized. Recommended for public libraries. —Ellen Gilbert, Rutgers Univ. Lib., New Brunswick, NJ
Library Journal



When it was first published in 2000, Malcolm Gladwell's book about social epidemics "tipped." It made the bestseller lists both here and abroad. It became a popular phenomenon. This is what The Tipping Point is all about. Gladwell's concept, the topic of sociologists since the 1970s, is that trends and ideas take off—reach the tipping point—for some reason, usually because of the influence of a small group or even one individual. He offers as his first example the resurgence in popularity among the cool people of Hush Puppies, the brushed-suede shoes that were down to sales of a mere 30,000 pairs a year. Suddenly in 1995 they became a hot property and they sold 430,000 pairs a year. The same phenomenon occurs with crimes, children's television (Sesame Street and Blue's Clues), smoking among the young, direct mail, and Paul Revere's famous ride. Gladwell says that the best way to think of these trends is to see them as epidemics; they spread like viruses do. And in that spread some people are more influential than others. He posits three rules: the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context. His explanations are persuasive. His ideas on smoking among youngsters and how to slow it should be required reading by government officials at all levels. In his new afterword, Gladwell touches on the AIDS epidemic, improving public schools in tough neighborhoods, the massacre at Columbine High School, and finding Mavens, those influential people who make things happen. Highly recommended for its clear exposition of important issues. Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults.
Janet Julian - KLIATT

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Book Club Discussion Questions

1. The Tipping Point is that magic moment when an idea, trend or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. At what point does it become obvious that something has reached a boiling point and is about to tip?

2. The possibility of sudden change is at the center of the idea of the Tipping Point -- big changes occurring as a result of small events. If we agree that we are all, at heart, gradualists, our expectations set by the steady passage of time, is it reassuring to think that we can predict radical change by pinning their tipping points? Can we really ensure that the unexpected becomes the expected?

3. The 80/20 Principle states that in any situation roughly 80 percent of the 'work' will be done by 20 percent of the participants. This idea is central to the Law of the Few theory where a tiny percentage of people do the majority of work. But say you took those 20 people who do all the "work" away, would changes or epidemics never occur or would the next 20 people step into that role and assume the position of "workers"? Is one born an exceptional person, a 'one of the few,' or could someone eventually learn how to become a member of this exceptional group?

4. Stickiness means that a message makes an impact and doesn't go in one ear and out the other. Take a simple, every day example of this. Think about a song that you couldn't get out of your head or that television commercial you still remember from when you were a kid. Could you pinpoint what it is you think makes them "sticky?"

5. This says that human beings are a lot more sensitive to their environment than they may seem. How attuned are you to your environment and its effect on you? Have you felt your mood change because of the surroundings even if it's as subtle as standing near a couple in a bitter argument or being in a cluttered, messy bedroom?

6. Would you rather see a film, eat at a restaurant or shop at a store on hearing from a friend that it's good or do you prefer to go in 'blind' with no expectations? Is the word-of-mouth phenomenon a strictly organic process or can it be manipulated? By this, I mean, do products circulate via word-of-mouth solely based on their merit and impact on the consumer or is it possible for marketers to create buzz from people paid to do so? Would this work or would this fail as soon as the 'word' got beyond the 'fixed' transmitters?

7. Connectors -- the kinds of people who know everyone and possess special gifts for bringing the world together. What kind of careers and job titles would you expect Connectors to have? Connectors are defined by having many acquaintances, a sign of social power, but do you think a Connector privileges quantity over quality? How do Connectors embody the maxim "it's not what you know but who you know?"

8. Maven -- means one who accumulates knowledge and who has information on a lot of different products or prices or places. Could anyone be a maven if they just have the diligence and desire to learn a specific craft or area of knowledge?

9. Salesmen -- are the select group of people with the skills to persuade us when we are unconvinced of what we are hearing. Discuss what you think makes a good salesman? Think about the last time you were in a store and what you liked or didn't like about the retail person assisting you? Have you ever felt suckered into buying something or recognized the only reason you bought an item (or even one in ever color) was because of the person selling it to you?

10. What happens when two people talk? They engage in a kind of dance. Their volume and pitch fall into balance and they fall into physical and conversational harmony? So, when we 'click' with someone, is this harmony immediately established without effort or can it be created and fine-tuned with practice or over time? Is it this synchronicity that leads to attraction? Does the way people 'dance' with each other indicate the presence of chemistry?

11. What would you describe yourself as -- a connecter, maven or salesman? Think of the people you know and who out of them best exemplifies these categories and why?

12. Sesame Street was an example of how an agent of infection (television) was able to infect a positive virus (literacy). What are some other examples of sticky messages that aren't as beneficial in culture?

13. What makes a message memorable? What about the commercial we dislike and we only recall because it irritated us so intensely? Haven't the advertisers fulfilled their purpose by the sheer fact you remember their commercial? Does this mean that the cliché "even bad publicity is good publicity" is right? If something gets noticed and sticks in the viewer's mind then does the nature of the message not matter?

14. We have become, in our society, overwhelmed by people clamoring for our attention. This information age has created a stickiness problem. Has the excessive amount of choice proved counter-productive for American consumerism? For instance, walking down the cereal aisle at the supermarket do you:

a) Buy way more than you need after spotting 3 new attractive, discounted products.

b) Head straight to your regular brand, walking out with the same cereal you have had since you were a kid.

c) Become paralyzed with indecision and leave after 2 hours with a loaf of bread?

15. What are some of the desperate measures taken by advertisers, publicists and celebrities to get noticed and stay in the limelight? How has the level of shock tactics used to grab public attention escalated and changed over time? Do we risk become totally desensitized as a culture, immune to the eyebrow-raising, attention-grabbing ploys of marketers?

16. Do you think that children's television shows like Sesame Street and Blues Clues are more educational and 'stickier' than books?

17. The Ya-Ya Sisterhood epidemic reveals the critical role that groups play in social epidemics. Psychologists tell us much the same thing: that when people are asked to consider evidence or make decisions in a group, they come to very different conclusions than when they are asked the same questions by themselves. Can we ever really make a decision in a vacuum, solely based on our own feelings, or do our peers or surroundings always influence us somehow?

18. The Rule of 150 suggests that the size of the group is another one of those subtle contextual factors that can make a big difference. Groups under the size of 150 are more effective as they can exploit the bonds of memory and peer pressure. Is there a particular group or organization that you consider successful and if so, what do you think makes them so effective?

19. If peer pressure is more powerful than the concept of a boss would you work harder for a boss whom you are friendly with because you care more what they think?

20. Do you believe that it was essentially the 'cool' marketing campaign that tipped the Airwalk trend? Can you think of other more current products that have exploded onto the market with an equally impressive advertising assault? Would Apple computers and the iPod phenomenon, for example, be as popular if it didn't have it's signature marketing campaign?

21. All kinds of high-tech products fail, never making it beyond the Early Adopters, because companies fail to transform an idea that makes perfect sense to an Early Adopter to one that makes perfect sense to a member of the Early Majority. Do you know of any examples of products or ideas that looked like they had great potential but never seemed to make it to the mainstream?

22. How do weird, idiosyncratic things that really cool kids do end up in the mainstream? They are translated from a highly specialized world into a language the rest of us can understand. So, when we judge things as being weird and idiosyncratic are we really saying that we just don't understand it? It's not the product but our interpretation of it that is limited? Could everything, if 'sugarcoated' in a way we recognize, ultimately, become palatable and even enjoyable?

23. The epidemics of suicide and smoking are complex and largely unconscious contagions with far more subtle undercurrents at work. One explanation beyond rationale is that as humans we get permission to act by seeing others engage in deviant acts. When we engage in dangerous or reckless behavior of any kind, how much of our decision to do so is conscious versus unintentional?

24. Are you a smoker or have you ever been? What do you think makes some people pick up the habit while others steer clear of it their whole lives?

25. What are your opinions on the nature vs. nurture debate? Do you agree that environment plays a bigger role in shaping and influence children than genetics and personality?

26. "Telling teenagers about the health risks of smoking -- it will make you wrinkled! It will make you impotent! It will make you dead! -- is useless," says Judith Harris. Is this morally incomprehensible advice or the sad truth? What do you think about the psychologist David Rowe's theory that "the role of parents is a passive -- providing a set of genes at loci relevant to smoking risk, but not socially influencing their offspring?" Should parents spend more time trying to monitor and shape their children's peer group than correcting and disciplining them in the home?

27. Do you agree that instead of fighting experimentation, which is a natural and unavoidable fate of growing up, we should be rather focusing on diminishing the consequences of that experimentation? For example instead of forbidding your child from consuming alcohol when he goes out or proselytizing about the dangers of under-age drinking, should parents rather ensure there is a sober, designated driver at one of their parties? What other examples can you come up with based in this approach?

28. What underlies successful epidemics, in the end, is a bedrock belief that change is possible, that people can radically transform their behavior or beliefs in the face of the right kind of impetus. Can leopards really change their spots and do you agree that it only takes the smallest infractions to cause the greatest changes? With the slightest push in the right place, can the world around us be tipped?
(Questions from author's website.)