The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell

I have to say I’m slightly obsessed with reading about how things work in life and ‘Tipping point’ is just my kind of book. 

If you’re not familiar with the lexicon, tipping point is described by sociologists as a point in time when group of people quickly adopts a rare practice and it affects wider population. So basically it means that if I would start screaming ‘What does the fox say’ in the middle of the street, someone would follow my (awesome) behaviour and then you would get random people suddenly doing the same thing all over London. It would reach the tipping point when masses of innocent Londoners would ask this eternal question for no apparent reason whatsoever. The author gives better examples, but who cares about fax machine sales in the US in the 90’s anyway? 

So what makes things tip? According the author there are three categories:

1. The law of the few

2. The stickiness factor

3. The power of context

The law of the few was my favourite. According to Gladwell, only a very small group of people are responsible for word-of-mouth epidemics and they can be described as connectors, mavens and salesmen. Connectors have exceptionally large personal networks, mavens can tell you everything about where to stay, what to eat and how much things cost and salesmen are individuals with extraordinary skill to persuade. It’s funny to go through the people you know and categorise them. I can sadly admit that me, personally, can’t be placed in any of the categories mentioned above.

The stickiness factor is specific content of message that makes its impact very memorable. The author gives examples from popular western children's television programs such as Sesame Street and Blue's Clues and how the creators of them pioneered the idea provide the entertainment programmes together with educational content.

Gladwell says that "Epidemics are sensitive to the conditions and circumstances of the times and places in which they occur". We’re all mortals and our environment also defines who we are and how we live (except for few weirdoes of course). Did you know that for example, zero tolerance for small crimes led to a decline of homicides and other violent crimes in New York? No? Well now you do. And one example from real life – I would never ever go on public transport without paying the fare, but after seeing people jumping the barriers in Paris metro stations, I deliberately went through the gate with a buggy and didn’t feel guilty at all. How very criminal of me!

Tipping Point gets repetitive sometimes, but is a thought-stimulating and interesting book worth reading.