Malcolm Gladwell

How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

The Tipping Point

From the bestselling author of The Bomber Mafia: discover Malcolm Gladwell's breakthrough debut and explore the science behind viral trends in business, marketing, and human behavior.

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 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 a 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.

“A wonderful page-turner about a fascinating idea that should affect the way every thinking person looks at the world.” —Michael Lewis

Phuong Do

These three characteristics one, contagiousness; two, the fact that little causes can have big effects; and three, that change happens not gradually but at one dramatic moment are the same three principles that define how measles moves through a grade-school classroom or the flu attacks every winter

The Tipping Point is the biography of an idea, and the idea is very simple. It is that the best way to understand the emergence of fashion trends, the ebb and How of crime waves, or, for that matter, the transformation ot unknown books into bestsellers, or the rise of teenage smoking, or the phenomena of word of mouth, or any number of the other mysterious changes that mark everyday life is to think of them as epidemics. Ideas and products and mes- sages and behaviors spread just like Viruses do.

Elisavet Rozaki 

Anton

If you like other Malcolm Gladwell’s books, you’ll like this one. The story is captivating and well written, and it makes a good story to tell to your friends at a bar. 

Comparing to some other books by the same author (Outliers, Talking to Stranger), this book’s message is less vivid and less actionable.

Benedict Neo

The Law of the Few - Connectors, Mavens, Salesmen, The power of context, The concept of Tipping point

All are crucial ideas that explain about social epidemics.

Jaiden Ratti

Einfach nur langweilig und ohne sinnvollen Inhalt der einen wirklich weiterbringt. 

Was bringt es mir zu wissen das es 3 Arten von Leuten gibt die einen Hype auslösen können, oder über 30 Seiten darüber warum Kinder bestimmte Serien gucken, einfach null Mehrwert...

Lorenz Herrmann

Einfach nur langweilig und ohne sinnvollen Inhalt der einen wirklich weiterbringt. 

Was bringt es mir zu wissen das es 3 Arten von Leuten gibt die einen Hype auslösen können, oder über 30 Seiten darüber warum Kinder bestimmte Serien gucken, einfach null Mehrwert...

Yuval Shoshan

Colleen

4.5 Stars

I like Gladwell's writing style very much. I enjoyed The Tipping Point even more than Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. Both books follow the same format: using various case studies, theories, and studies to support a thesis. But I felt that The Tipping Point had a deeper impact. It seemed to have a more profound sociological message. More than being just a business or psychology aid, The Tipping Point can easily be applied to so many everyday situations. And it is written in such a way that it can be readily understood by most people even if they don't have a background in business or psychology.

Gladwell is definitely a talented storyteller. But he isn't telling fiction. He wades through countless interviews, case studies, research papers, and psychological studies to present the most relevant and interesting items to prove a larger point. And he tells it all in an easy-to-read and captivating way. What could trendy shoes, STDs, religious movements, or children's shows possibly have in common? In The Tipping Point, Gladwell explains how ideas, trends, and even diseases move in similar ways. He discuses how to promote the good things (such as a brand) or reduce the bad ones (disease). He also discuses why some ideas fail to catch on or "stick." 

I always loved reading case studies in school. That's probably why I enjoy Gladwell's books so much. The most interesting cases have been plucked out and lined up in a nerdy buffet for me to ponder. The book covers such a wide range of topics (rather than focusing tightly on one area the way many similar books do) that I never lost interest.

My one critic is that sometimes Gladwell gets a little caught up in the details of interviews. This usually happened when he was describing what an interviewee was wearing or the room they were in.

My favorite parts were the sections about character in context and apply the ideas of The Tipping Point to social change. About the first, Gladwell sites psychological studies about how a person's character is a much more fluid thing than we usually want to think. Just the word "character" indicates something rock solid and stalwart. But when you think about it, people do act differently in different situations. They behave differently around family than around coworkers or strangers. They also behave very differently in stressful situations. Gladwell said, “Character isn't what we think it is or, rather, what we want it to be. It isn't a stable, easily identifiable set of closely related traits, and it only seems that way because of a glitch in the way our brains are organized. Character is more like a bundle of habits and tendencies and interests, loosely bound together and dependent, at certain times, on circumstance and context.” Which would explain how one person can act so differently yet not be being fake. Or in the extreme, how a seemingly decent person could get caught up in mob mentality or resort to cannibalism in a dire circumstance.

The latter idea about using these theories for social change was also very interesting. Small actions, such as cleaning up graffiti, can actually decrease crime for instance. Gladwell considers how small actions or ideas can be "tipped" one way or the other to influence anything from teen smoking rates to suicide. I really like the quote, “A critic looking at these tightly focused, targeted interventions might dismiss them as Band-Aid solutions. But that phrase should not be considered a term of disparagement. The Band-Aid is an inexpensive, convenient, and remarkably versatile solution to an astonishing array of problems. In their history, Band-Aids have probably allowed millions of people to keep working or playing tennis or cooking or walking when they would otherwise have had to stop. The Band-Aid solution is actually the best kind of solution because it involves solving a problem with the minimum amount of effort and time and cost.” Don't underestimate those Band-Aids!

This review fulfills the "Nonfiction Book" category of the Popsugar reading challenge. http://www.popsugar.com/love/Reading-...

Rama WR

Still reading, overall is good but there should be something i can conclude after i'm finishing this book

Beau

It's standard Gladwell; fascinating sociological insights into how peculiar things happen and why people follow one another even in the most extreme of cases (his case studies on how Hush Puppies were tipped by a bunch of cool kids in East Village, the connections between high-school shootings post Columbine, and wide-spread pseudo-sickness, and how all these areas are heavily influenced via the most unlikely of things were particularly fascinating) It took a while to get into his train of thought, at least longer than Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking - but once that happened is was a joyous as any given Gladwell book/podcast/listen. 3 and a half stars.

Lord Aragorn

Some interesting insights but the book didn't hold my attention as much as "Outliers".

Keven Wang

Is it just me, I prefer Malcolm’s later works than his earlier endeavors?

Erwin Lemuel Oliva

Malcolm Gladwell is a genius. He's a great story teller and he can make trivial stuff interesting. the mark of a true journalist!

Ivy X

Really enjoyed the hush puppies, Sesame Street, and bystander effect sections. The afterword was also very interesting as they questioned what the Columbine shooting did to other students who were inspired by the unfortunate incident.

Arturo Hernández

The book presents an essay attempting to understand why certain events reach epidemic levels of presence. It presents a model stating specific laws and profiles that help with this. It has a lot of case studies that exemplify the theory Malcolm shows and it states, quite frequently, that there is still more to this than what he showcases. I appreciated the fact that he quotes several books and authors that presented diverse related theories (some of them supporting his point of view, some others that don’t). I really enjoyed this book :)

Yasser Yahia

One of the most amazing books I've ever read, lots of new stuff to know and learn with every new chapter. Some how it made me trust my believe that the impossible is not that hard even more :-)
It is a recommended book for everyone and I really mean everyone. Preparing myself for the new book for Malcolm Gladwell :)

Adam

All creators want to see their finished products get broad attention. This book investigates that illusive point where things fall in line, momentum begins to build and success is inevitable. Like with other Gladwell books, The Tipping Point is peppered with stories that seem unrelated at first, but are always brought back to the central theme (something I wish I was as good at). It's an entertaining book, and an informative book, but I felt it was missing a way to FIND a tipping point.

Queena Li

Gladwell's writing accomplishes something very special in that, he makes the world seem connected in secret, powerful ways. He writes longform pieces on the most menial of topics and then has them read like topical op-eds. I enjoy the way Malcolm Gladwell sees the world.

That being said, I often finds his essay collections poorly structured and repetitive. They aren't as wholly cohesive as they are individually. They aren't streamlined to tell any comprehensible set of thoughts, just various cases strung together to share in a similiar theme. The second half of his books, especially, just seem to lose momentum. The essays don't connect, which may be the intent, but I really think bringing everything together in the end would be more satisfying to read. I wish Gladwell would stop ending his books on restating his thesis and instead, structure his collections the way he organizes each piece. I wish he would present facts, evaluate them, expand on them, and then bring everything back together to isolate some new, previously overlooked point of association.

While "The Tipping Point" was thematically fascinating (i.e. how/when epidemics occur, what we can learn from them, how their lessons better our lives, etc), I found the latter chapters to be far less compelling than his initial arguments. They dragged on aimlessly. I would have prefered fewer business examples and more personal stories, but that may just be a personal preference. Gladwell is, after all, a business writer so I can understand when his interests gravitate towards that area. 

This is still worth reading for anyone who has ever wondered about the nature and dynamic of how ideas (are) spread.

Melissa Moore

Very informative book. Interesting to learn more about how a tiny change can have a big impact.

Sarah Vaughan

Malcolm Gladwell has an uncanny ability to weave seemingly unconnected anecdotes and mounds of data into an interesting and enjoyable reading experience.

I enjoyed reading about the way in which "tipping points" are instrumental in changing the course of epidemics, marketing campaigns, and even fashion trends. I expect I'll remember many of the anecdotes for years to come. 

I'm finding myself viewing situations I encounter with a new lens - for instance, with one minor adjustment, how could this entire situation shift? It's fascinating to think we are living in the midst of so many situations that could have a positive or negative impact on those around us at any given moment. 

The most intriguing parts of the book, however, were those which use anecdotes with tipping points to describe the complexities of human nature - our mistaken belief that people are inherently good or bad and have a predisposed proclivity for making good or bad choices for instance.

"To look closely at complex behaviors like smoking or suicide or crime is to appreciate how suggestible we are in the face of what we see and hear, and how acutely sensitive we are to even the smallest details of everyday life. That's why social change is so volatile and so often inexplicable because it is the nature of all of us to be volatile and inexplicable."

"The Power of Context suggests that the criminal - far from being someone who acts for fundamental, intrinsic reasons and who lives in his own world - is actually someone who is acutely sensitive to his environment, who is alert to all kinds of cues, and who is prompted to commit crimes based on his perception of the world around him."

THE TIPPING POINT is the biography of an idea, and the idea is quite simple. It is that many of the problems we face - from crime to teenage delinquency to traffic jams - behave like epidemics. They aren't linear phenomena in the sense that they steadily and predictably change according to the level of effort brought to bear against them. They are capable of sudden and dramatic changes in direction. Years of well-intentioned intervention may have no impact at all, yet the right intervention - at just the right time - can start a cascade of change. Many of the social ills that face us today, in other words, are as inherently volatile as the epidemics that periodically sweep through the human population: little things can cause them to 'tip' at any time and if we want to understand how to confront and solve them we have to understand what those 'Tipping Points' are. In this revolutionary new study, Malcolm Gladwell explores the ramifications of this. Not simply for politicians and policy-makers, his method provides a new way of viewing everyday experience and enables us to develop strategies for everything from raising a child to running a company.

Lauren 

I did find this interesting, but I feel like a lot of the references used I’ve heard about before in situations that fit better, sometimes in his other books so it didn’t feel as fresh ? and more like twisting things to fit this specific idea. But I find his writing super understandable and nice to read

Michael Friess

The Tipping Point is about how ideas, products or viewpoints suddenly become popular and cultures can change very quickly. Malcolm Gladwell compares these processes to epidemics and discusses the relevant factors for them to spread. Among others he identifies three relevant roles that participate in the process: mavens, connectors and salesmen.

The book is an easy read and the examples very enlightening - stickyness of Sesame Street or the drop in crime rate in New York.

More comments: http://michael.friess.org/review/2007...

Meredith Rose

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! It was gifted to me by my university after being awarded a Communication Public Relations Award and scholarship. I believe this is a good read for anyone, but especially aspiring PR professionals. Gladwell makes a very strong case for the ability of small actions to make big differences in the world. In the process, he discusses and considers some very intriguing scientific and psychological studies. I was never once bored reading this book!

Renee Delcourt

I never fail to love Malcolm Gladwell's books. They are always so fascinating and informative in a way that makes sense to everyone. This one didn't disappoint. I loved learning how fads and epidemics are caused.

The Tipping Point How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

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