The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
Book Review: Learning How to Grow Faster from the Metaphor of Epidemics!
Summary: 5 Stars
Tipping points are those places where geometric increases follow, that are temporarily unbounded by other limits. For example, when lily pads cover a little more than half of a pond, the rest of the pond's surface will soon follow. That last doubling will cause almost more surface to be covered than all of the prior growth, but will take only a fraction of the time. Although this book focuses on tipping points, it is really about systems dynamics -- how related phenomena build on each other in feedback loops (for example, how adding food to the environment for rapidly growing species expands their populations). This subject is an essential part of books like The Fifth Discipline, The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook, The Dance of Change, and The Soul at Work. Because the book never makes that connection to systems dynamics, most readers won't either. That's a problem because you will need the tools from these other resources and disciplines to apply this book's thesis of pushing the tipping point. Missing this connection is the book's main weakness.For people who are interested in how to start (or stop) trends, this book is a useful encapsulation of much of the best and most provocative behavioral research in recent years. Unless you follow this subject closely (someone the author would call a Maven), you will find that much of this is new to you.
On the other hand, if you have been involved in the marketing of trendy items or stopping medical epidemics, this will seem very elementary and old hat.
I found the book to be a pleasant and quick read of how behaviors move from equilibrium into disequilibrium, caused by some factor that creates the tipping point to expand or decrease the behavior. If you are like me, I suspect you will, too.
If you want to apply these lessons, you will probably find the book's explanation of the concepts to be just a little too general for your real needs. A good related book to fill in your sense of how human behavior works is Influence by Robert Cialdini.
Essentially, the book's thesis is that trends grow by expanding the base of those who will spread the word of mouth and be listened to, aided by powerful messages that stick indelibly into the mind and an environment that psychologically encourages the trend.
The weakness of that argument is that it fails to fully address the physical needs that might be served to support the trend. Sure, psychology is important, but so is physiology. To the author's credit, the examples clearly deal with physiology (such as the smoking and children's television sections), but the book's thesis does not really do so. It is a strange omission. I think some people will be confused about what to do as a result.
Clearly, this book is about identifying what causes behavior through careful measurement. The examples are especially interesting because the common sense causes are seldom the right ones. For example, some children do not seem to pay much attention to a given educational television show while they play with toys. Actually, these children are picking up as much information from the show as those that do pay undivided attention, because no more than partial attention is needed for these viewers. This reminds me of the lessons about human behavior in the beer game example in The Fifth Discipline where role-playing beer retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers willy-nilly over order and over produce beer because of misinterpreting a temporary shortage as a permanent one, creating a long-term disaster for all concerned. The obvious is often obviously wrong.
Anyone applying these ideas needs to develop those causation-finding measurement skills. Since the book does not provide much guidance beyond examples of successfully and unsuccessfully using them, about all you can hope for is to remember to get expert help and double check the expert's conclusions with measurements.
Almost any reader will at least get a few great stories to use at the next cocktail party or dinner, assuming your companions have not yet read this book. Have fun, and enjoy more irresistible growth as a result!
Book Review: Tipped
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a provocative and smart book. It repackages all the common sense and instinct we all have and presents it wonderfully well: nothing in Gladwell's book is new but it is fascinating nonetheless. His comments and insight, and the excellent examples he uses to make his points, have been very useful to me. I have heard people ask about this book "where is the tipping point?". It is a fair enough question and not one that Gladwell answers. He can't have set out to do so though: the tipping point is different in every instance in which it appears. He is merely explaining the factors that contribute to it. As a marketer, this is invaluable.
I wish that people were more prepared to put their trust in instinct. We are social creatures and naturally respond to stimuli all around us. Gladwell knows this and explains how we can make what we know about ourselves work very effectively in business environments.
Book Review: the anecdotes are good
Summary: 3 Stars
I struggle with this book. It has a number of interesting anecdotes about business, from hush puppies to sesame street via six degrees of seperation, but the idea at its core is uninspiring - ideas take hold through word of mouth, through the right sort of champions; through being the right sort of ideas - well, that hardly adds anything novel.Worth reading, quickly, for interesting snippets of information, but thats about it.
Book Review: Positive and negative
Summary: 3 Stars
I am seriously ambivalent about this book, simultaneously being very negative and quite positive...First, the negative, deeply cynical comments...
Golly gosh some things are non-linear! Maybe the spread of ideas is non-linear! Perhaps the techniques used by people studying other non-linear phenomena, particularly those used by epidemiologists, could be applied.
Gladwell takes these hardly earth shattering observations and coins some buzzwords to describe the key concepts. The buzzwords appear to have been devised by a marketing man, containing strong, powerful words: Tipping POINT, the LAW of the few, Stickiness, POWER of context. He then builds a meandering, long-winded book about it, beating each concept to death with fluffy prose and padding the whole thing with interminable anecdotes.
On a more positive note...
I actually rather enjoyed this book, particularly the anecdotes. I stand by the substance of the negative comments above but unless that sort of thing really, really winds you up it should not overwhelm the book's positive qualities. He is hopelessly long winded (after all, he does write for the New Yorker which never uses a word when multiple paragraphs will do) but he writes well and there are some good stories.
The section on the law of the few makes some interesting points - he introduces the concepts of Mavens (people who know things), Salesmen (people who know lots of people) and Connectors (people who can convince people) and illustrates how and why they are responsible for the spread of ideas. He makes the point (repeatedly) that these people are the important factors in spreading ideas - it is the law of the few because it requires remarkably few of them. There are some good anecdotes - the resurgence of hush puppies, Airwalk trainers, Paul Revere raising the alarm that the British were coming. Although he does stretch the Paul Revere story to breaking point - he knew the right people, he other guy didn't.
The chapter on stickiness includes an interesting, if overlong, description of how Sesame Street and Blues Clues try to ensure that children remember their message (literacy). It is a little disappointing that the pursuit of stickiness has led us from a wonderful program (Sesame Street) full of wit and invention to the anodyne and dull Blue's Clues. In this case, I guess that the (good) end does justify the means; interestingly Gladwell steered clear of examples where the end is less patently good.
The chapters on context and the case studies are the most interesting. He does a particularly good job in demonstrating how very small changes in environment (context) can have a profound impact. He provides the best and most convincing explanation I have read of why New York's 'no broken windows' zero tolerance policing approach worked. The case studies of smoking (smoking isn't cool, smokers, or rather people with a strong disposition to smoke, are), Micronesian suicides and the law of 150 are very interesting.
Overall, it is worth reading (providing you are not too cynical or too familiar with the subject areas that he draws on) and it does provide a number of good conversation topics - I just wish that either he was more familiar with Occam or had a better editor.
Book Review: Outstanding, fascinating read
Summary: 5 Stars
I loved this book. It's a long time since I've come across a non-fiction book that has you turning the pages like this one.It's a great mix of well executed research and clearly explained conclusions on the little things that make a big difference in life.