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The Tipping Point
By Malcolm Gladwell

A quick search of Amazon.com Purchase Circles finds that "The Tipping Point" is a favorite read of advertising agencies and PR firms. Why? Author Malcolm Gladwell surmises that they are realizing that "because of the sheer ubiquity of marketing efforts these days, word-of-mouth appeals have become the only kind of persuasion that most us respond to anymore."

"The Tipping Point" demystifies the process of word-of-mouth marketing and outlines examples of how companies and individuals have found the tipping points for their causes, or in other words, the moment when an idea takes off and reaches critical mass.

The author compares the spread of viral epidemics to the way ordinary things "tip" toward widespread knowledge or acceptance. Typically, its pattern includes a contagious agent, little causes having big effects with all of it usually happening in one big, dramatic moment. This can happen with ideas, products, messages and behaviors, too.

Gladwell outlines a potent case study. It is the interesting tale of rekindled interest in Hush Puppies shoes. Hush Puppies were all but dead in 1994, yet a handful of kids in the East Village and Soho wore the pairs they picked up in second-hand stores. Fashion designer John Bartlett spied the kids’ shoes on the street and thought they would make interesting accessories for his spring collection. Haute couture designer Anna Sui followed Bartlett’s lead and insisted on them for her next fashion show. Suddenly, 30,000 pairs of Hush Puppies are sold in 1994, 430,000 in 1995, almost 2 million in 1996, and you get the idea. The fashion-conscious are ripe hosts for spreading idea viruses.

To understand what the non-trendoid can do to deliberately start and control positive epidemics of her own, Gladwell cites three rules:

1. Law of the Few - epidemics are a function of the people who transmit infectious agents. The people who transmit easily are connectors (those who know many people), mavens (those who frequently gather information), and salespeople (those who’s personality transmits a message effectively).

2. The Stickiness Factor - the infectious agent itself, that is, how sticky its message is.

3. The Power of Context - the environment in which the infectious agent is operating.

When an epidemic tips, it is because something has happened, and a change has occurred in one or more of those three areas.

Gladwell’s chapter on the "Law of the Few" will sound familiar to those who have read Seth Godin’s "Unleashing the Ideavirus" or Emanuel Rosen’s "The Anatomy of Buzz." Gladwell’s "mavens, connectors and salesmen" are cousins to Godin’s "sneezers" and Rosen’s "network hubs."

Lest we fear that this is a book geared only toward Prada People, "The Tipping Point" brims with insights into how historical and commonplace events transpired. We learn that:

* Paul Revere’s ride was successful in spreading news about the forthcoming invasion because he was a maven and a connector.

* Sesame Street and Blues Clues have become popular children’s shows because its writers maniacally focused on the stickiness of its messages.

* "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" became a best seller because of the context in which the author publicized her message - to groups of women around the country.

One thing "The Tipping Point" is not: A how-to manual for spreading an idea, product or behavior. More importantly, as Gladwell argues, to create change, we must reframe the way we think about the world through research and then deliberately test our intuitions. Positive epidemics can be successfully launched if we hold steadfast to our belief that we can change the world.

-- Jackie Huba