I just finished reading The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. Published in 2000, the book soon became an international bestseller. Although I had heard enthusiastic stories about this book, it was not until last weekend that I bought my own copy of The Tipping Point, together with Gladwell's second book, Blink, which was published earlier this year.
In the book, whose subtitle is "How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference", Gladwell explains and analyses the 'tipping point', that magic moment when ideas, trends and social behaviours cross a threshold, tip and spread like wildfire. In other words, Gladwell looks at what causes social epidemics.
According to Gladwell, three rules underlie the Tipping Point: the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor and the Power of Context. The first rule, the Law of the Few, states that the success of any kind of social epidemic is heavily dependent on the involvement of people with a particular and rare set of social gifts. There are three kinds of people: Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen. Connectors are people who are (surprise!) very well-connected in that they know many others. They bring distinct groups together, acting as 'hubs'. A Maven, on the other hand, is someone who accumulates knowledge, they are information brokers and can be compared to human data banks. Salesmen, finally, are pursuaders, who build trust and rapport far quicker than normal people. It is Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen who super-charge the word-of-mouth mechanism, thereby starting social epidemics.
Not every message, however, will start an epidemic. Such messages should be 'sticky' and hence the Stickiness Factor relates to the structure and format of the message. The message should create some sort of involvement, moving people to action. Furthermore, the delivery of the message should involve repetition, making the message more memorable. Finally, there is the Power of Context, which means that the circumstances have a lot to do with the fact of a message tipping or not; to tip or not to tip, that's the question.
A former business and science writer at the Washington Post, Gladwell illustrates the rules primarily with social examples, apart from a brief discussion of the concept of the 'chasm' in high-tech marketing as described by Geoffrey Moore in his book Crossing the Chasm. It is not difficult to see, however, that buzz marketing is based on similar concepts. I was surprised to find that the author did not make any reference to the field of system dynamics, especially because Jay W. Forrester has written extensively on the application of system dynamics to social problems such as unemployment in America's big cities. Nevertheless, The Tipping Point is an interesting read and I can only hope that Blink is equally insightful.
Postscript: Check out www.digitaltippingpoint.com, which addresses the question as to when Open Source software and in particular Linux will reach the tipping point and overtake closed source and Microsoft Windows on the desktop.
In the book, whose subtitle is "How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference", Gladwell explains and analyses the 'tipping point', that magic moment when ideas, trends and social behaviours cross a threshold, tip and spread like wildfire. In other words, Gladwell looks at what causes social epidemics.
According to Gladwell, three rules underlie the Tipping Point: the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor and the Power of Context. The first rule, the Law of the Few, states that the success of any kind of social epidemic is heavily dependent on the involvement of people with a particular and rare set of social gifts. There are three kinds of people: Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen. Connectors are people who are (surprise!) very well-connected in that they know many others. They bring distinct groups together, acting as 'hubs'. A Maven, on the other hand, is someone who accumulates knowledge, they are information brokers and can be compared to human data banks. Salesmen, finally, are pursuaders, who build trust and rapport far quicker than normal people. It is Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen who super-charge the word-of-mouth mechanism, thereby starting social epidemics.
Not every message, however, will start an epidemic. Such messages should be 'sticky' and hence the Stickiness Factor relates to the structure and format of the message. The message should create some sort of involvement, moving people to action. Furthermore, the delivery of the message should involve repetition, making the message more memorable. Finally, there is the Power of Context, which means that the circumstances have a lot to do with the fact of a message tipping or not; to tip or not to tip, that's the question.
A former business and science writer at the Washington Post, Gladwell illustrates the rules primarily with social examples, apart from a brief discussion of the concept of the 'chasm' in high-tech marketing as described by Geoffrey Moore in his book Crossing the Chasm. It is not difficult to see, however, that buzz marketing is based on similar concepts. I was surprised to find that the author did not make any reference to the field of system dynamics, especially because Jay W. Forrester has written extensively on the application of system dynamics to social problems such as unemployment in America's big cities. Nevertheless, The Tipping Point is an interesting read and I can only hope that Blink is equally insightful.
Postscript: Check out www.digitaltippingpoint.com, which addresses the question as to when Open Source software and in particular Linux will reach the tipping point and overtake closed source and Microsoft Windows on the desktop.
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