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The Tipping Point (by Malcolm Gladwell)
I had for years avoided this book because it sounded suspiciously like marketing mumbo-jumbo. Now that I have read it, I know that this was just a prejudice. "The Tipping Point" is actually a very good book about how ideas and memes permeate through social systems. A tipping point in this context is the point at which an idea becomes so pervasive that growth becomes exponential and seemingly surprising adoption happens.
Malcolm Gladwell introduces various concepts to explain the spread of ideas, gives them catchy names to keep them in mind, and he explains them with great examples. We learn what made Sesame Street so successful, how Hush Puppies shoes suddenly became en vogue again, how crime in New York city was brought down, or why current efforts against youth smoking are not succeeding.
An especially interesting distinction is made under the hood of what Gladwell calls "The Law of the Few". Starting from the insight that not all people in a network are equal, he identifies three types of people who are important for the spreading of ideas: Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen. Connectors are people who know a lot of other people, have a huge realm of acquaintances, and actively build new connections between their existing ones. It's those super-networkers who just seem to know everybody. Mavens are people who live on information and have the power to influence other people. When they speak, others listen. When they recommend, others believe. Mavens might not know a lot of people, but the people who they know would trust the maven to a very high degree without the maven needing to do a lot of actual selling. He's just a natural authority if you will. Salesmen are the easiest group to understand, in that they are people who have the ability to persuade other people. Or as Gladwell puts it:
In a social epidemic, Mavens are data banks. They provide the message. Connectors are social glue: they spread it. ... Salesmen - with the skills to persuade us when we are unconvinced of what we are hearing ...
When connectors, mavens, and salesmen are all involved into an idea, it has a much higher chance of spreading. Vice versa, if you have an idea or a product that needs adoption, it might very well be valuable to identify and target these three types of people separately to push for a better adoption of what you are aiming to spread. The ideal chain would then go something like this perhaps: Convince the mavens, make sure they talk to the connectors, and have the salesmen spread the idea beyond the initial few. Yes, that sounds like marketing 101, but sometimes it's about putting old knowledge in better explanatory bodies for it to become more valuable. The concept of connectors, mavens, and salesmen actually gives good target groups to attack with whatever toolset you have at your disposal.
I have only two criticisms with the book. First, it sometimes lacks structural clarity and rigor, which makes it tough to remember the concepts without always keeping in mind the examples. A few summaries, a few charts, and a few summarizing boxes might have served the book very well. Second, its language sometimes gets too boastful, but hey, at least he's got a solid ground to stand on for the boasting.
Altogether, "The Tipping Point" is a great book, which not only provides insights into social mechanisms, but also offers a lot of knowledge that can be transferred to marketing and business in general. It's an easy read too.
- Book Title: The Tipping Point
- Book Authors: Malcolm Gladwell
- Year of Publication: 2000
- Buy the book at Amazon.com.
- My rating:
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