Modern Idea

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell (buy it at Amazon)

I read this book a few weeks ago on my way to my brother’s wedding in San Antonio. I had the luxury of Internet access the entire time I read so I livebloged my notes using a service called ScribbleLive. Liveblogging is typically reserved for things like reporting at the WWDC. Why liveblog a book? I don’t know, seemed like a good idea at the time…

How to use this synopsis:

This synopsis doesn’t contain great insight gleaned from the book. It also is not intended to be a simple summary whereby relieving you from the need to read the book—if in fact, you feel that you must read it. I would suggest that you print this out and read it along with the book. The author goes into very detailed stories to reinforce the messages. Sometime I found myself lost from the overall point. If you find yourself often interrupted then I would suggest that you have this printed as a reference. I have tried to summarize the key points in each section and provided page numbers so you can match up what I have summarized with what you’ve read. So, without further adieu…

Key Points

• Concept of the epidemic to explain widespread social change, be it the purchasing of a product or a social disease.
• Three agents of change: Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context. These will guide us to set direction on how we can achieve our own Tipping Point.
• Social epidemics are driven by a few exceptional people — those who act well beyond the social norm.
• The Stickiness factor is about making something that should be ‘contagious’ also memorable. Contagious is the phenomenon that you are attempting to make widespread.
• A social epidemic is dependent on the involvement of a special set of people w/ a rare set of social gifts (pg.33). This is the Law of the Few. These people can be described as Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen.
• Connectors: we all have our social circles which are very small. Connectors are people who span multiple social circles. Most of us are linked to each other through these special few people. The concept of Six Degrees of Separation would not be a reality if it were not for connectors.
• In reality, a social circle is not a circle at all. If you trace the friends in your circle you will almost certainly find that you were introduced to most of them through one person. Your social circle is more like a pyramid and your social circle isn’t really even yours — it is the connectors. (pg.38)
• When attempting to find a new job or learn a new thing, weak ties (connections you have with people on an acquaintance level) are more important than strong ties (connections w/in your social circle). The reason is that you already know the same people as those in your social circle. (pg. 54)
• Take Away: LinkedIn is a manifestation of the Connector specifically relating to weak ties since you are unlikely to be associated with your friends and family on this site. Geni is the opposite. Facebook on the other hand is a mix of these two as people generally accept friends who they may have a very loose tie.
• Connectors aren’t the only ones important in a social epidemic. Someone must tell the Connector! (pg. 59)
• Maven: Yiddish for “one who accumulates knowledge” (pg. 60)
• Market Mavens are socially motivated to help. It isn’t about showing off that they are so smart. Deep down Mavens want to help you make the decision that is best for you and they do this by imparting their knowledge on you. (pg. 62)
• Mavens have the knowledge and social skills to start a word-of-mouth epidemic. Mavens equate to Seth Godin’s sneezers (read Purple Cow) or Seth’s blog.
• Mavens are not persuaders. They are armed with knowledge and motivated to help. Their motivations are pure.
• “In a social epidemic, Mavens are data banks. They provide the message. Connectors are social glue: they spread it. But there is also a select group of people — Salesmen — with the skills to persuade us when we are unconvinced of what we are hearing, and they are as critical to the tipping of word-of-mouth epidemics as the other two groups.” (pg. 70)
• Take Away: pages 74-77. Discussion of Peter Jenning’s apparent bias towards Regan in the 1984 Presidential Election. Does television news media still have this level of influence? Clearly TV’s influence has decreased, however the bias in the news media has become an accepted practice in today’s society. On the flip side — maybe this study is bull shit. What do you think?
• Take Away: As part of a sales process getting small yeses is what leads to the final big YES! (can someone help me w/ what book this came from? Sales Bible?) Note in the example on page 77-78 that gestures such as head nodes can create the same effect. So in your next pitch/presentation get your audience shaking their head — up and down that is, not side to side
• Major Book Concept: Little things such as a head nod can make all the difference. The little things can have major impact.
• In an epidemic the messenger matters — they are what makes something spread. But the content of the message matters. According to Gladwell, the quality of the message is measured by its ’stickiness.’ Is the message (or food, or movie or product) memorable? (pg. 92) Note: this is also a key concept from Seth Godin’s writing.
• “There is a simple way to package information that, under the right circumstances, can make it irresistible. All you have to do is find it” (pg. 132)
• Stickiness suggests that in order to start an epidemic the idea has to be memorable and must move us to take action. Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen spread the epidemic whether or not they were the originator. The other key aspect of an epidemic is the Power of Context. Context involves the conditions and circumstances of the times and places that an epidemic occurs. It suggests that an epidemic is highly sensitive to these conditions (pg. 139)
• At times a connector may not be a person at all — but a physical manifestation of some kind. Tipping Point provides the example of graffiti in NYC subway cars as an example of this. (pg. 142)
• Power of Context is stated to be the same thing as the Broken Windows theory. (pg. 146)
• Wikipedia article explaining Broken Windows Theory
• Washington Post article criticizing the theory
• The Power of Context states that an epidemic may be facilitated by the time and place of an event. Context may also be true for certain kinds of environments that affect our inner states. That is to say that our thinking is heavily influenced by outer circumstances for which we find ourselves. Note the Stanford University study of the mock prison (pg. 152) that quickly transformed normal people into sadistic and cruel prison guards.
• The conclusion of the mock prison study is that certain “situations are so powerful that they can overwhelm our inherent predispositions.” (pg. 154)
• Another cited study was the “Good Samaritan” (pg. 165) that found “convict ions of your heart and the actual contents of your thoughts are less important, in the end, in guiding you actions than the immediate context of your behavior.” (pg. 165)
• Key Quote: “When we are trying to make an idea or attitude or product tip, we’re trying to change our audience in some small yet critical respect: we’re trying to infect them, sweep them up in our epidemic, convert them from hostility to acceptance. That can be done through the influence of special kinds of people, people of extraordinary personal connection. That’s the Law of the Few. It can be done by changing the content of communication, by making a message so memorable that it sticks in someone’s mind and compels them to action. That is the Stickiness Factor. I think that both of those laws make intuitive sense. But we need to remember that small changes in context can be just as important in tipping epidemics, even thought that fact appears to violate some of our most deeply held assumptions about human nature.” (pg. 166)
• Power of Context suggests that a community must be built in order to bring about fundamental change. This community would provide people in the group with a place to express and nurture these new beliefs and practice new traditions that may be required of the epidemic change. (pg. 173)
• Dunbar’s Number has been referenced as the limit to the size of a group that should be used to bring about epidemic change. (pg. 177)
• Gladwell refers to Dunbar’s Number as the Magic Number of 150
• Dunbar’s Number states that humans cannot keep track of personal relationships in group sizes greater than 150.
• Pages 177 through 181 discuss this number in great length. I’m not going to cover it here but the key take away is that if the group is too large then it will require bureaucracy that will stifle people to take action. (read the Gore Industries example on page 184) Also, groups that are too large will not afford people to have the personal connections necessary for an epidemic to take place.
• Groups lower than 150 can operate more efficiently than larger groups because personal loyalties and one-on-one contact is more effective than management pressure. “Peer pressure is much more powerful than a concept of a boss. People want to live up to what is expected of them.” (pg. 186)
• Take Away: How, as a manager, can we leverage this concept to hit deadlines?
• Interesting Point: Page 187 discusses how an integrated team (as opposed to business silos) are much more effective in providing free flowing knowledge throughout the organization. Sales people can provide feedback immediately to engineers, etc.
• Even with widespread adoption of a belief, trend or product within a community that has no more than 150 members; the action itself would not tip. “That is the paradox of the epidemic: that in order to create one contagious movement, you must often have to create many small movements first.” (pg 192).

Take-aways:

• Concentrate your resources on a few small areas.
• Attempt to shift the context, audience or manner in which the message is communicated
• Creating a social epidemic is about testing for what works — rarely is the initial intuition correct
• An epidemic is possible when people are open to the idea that change is possible

Remember to read the Conclusion carefully on pages 253-259

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 14th, 2008 at 7:59 pm and is filed under Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.