The Tipping Point

"The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell, is a lively, timely and engaging study of fads. Some of those he writes about fit snugly into the long tradition of crowd behavior: out-of-fashion HushPuppies resurged into popularity in 1994 and '95; teenagers, despite repeated health warnings, continue to smoke and in the past few years have been doing so in increasing numbers; and in 1998 a book called ''Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood'' reached a sales mark of two and a half million copies. Some of the other phenomena analyzed by Gladwell are a bit more unusual, including the decline in crime in New York City that began under Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. But all of them can be taken as examples of how unpredictable people can be when they find themselves in the throes of doing what everyone else is doing at the same time."

"Malcom Gladwell's The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference is a national bestseller for good reason. Packed with practical information and perhaps surprising conclusions, this book should be consumed by anyone looking to get a peek into the magic threshold when products, social behaviors or theories start small and suddenly spread throughout the country at an incredible rate."

"The tipping point is an expression used in epidemiology that was taken by Malcolm Gladwell, a New York Times writer, and applied to other areas of life—including business—in his 2000 book “The Tipping Point”. The subtitle, “How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference”, explains more clearly what the whole thing is about. In epidemiology the tipping point is that moment when a small change tips the balance of a system and brings about a large change; for example, when the normal spread of influenza throughout a population suddenly turns into an epidemic. In recent years the language of epidemiology has spread (like a virus?) within business. Managers talk about viral marketing (see article), the infectious enthusiasm of their teams, and “outbreaks” of corporate greed—and even, as was reported once about JetBlue, an American low-cost airline, an “outbreak of passenger abuse”. A lot of this language owes its spread to the influence of the internet, where viruses are common and where dormant information can sometimes erupt suddenly and infect us all."