Best Seller Books: The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference Review

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference [Paperback]

I read this book in part of one day - it's a good, quick read.Unlike some of the people who didn't care for the book - I never read the New Yorker article.It may be that the book doesn't add enough new info toexcite folks who have read that article.But to me the book threw out agood number of new ideas and concepts very quickly and very clearly.Ifound his ability to draw a nexus between things that, on the surface seemvery divergent, was very interesting, and he did it smoothly, withoutjumping around a lot.
The thrust of the book is that there are threethings that can converge to bring about dramatic and perhaps unexpectedlyfast changes in our society.These are the context (the situationalenvironment - especially when it's near the balance or 'tipping point'),the idea, and the people involved.His point is that very small changes inany or several of the context, the quality of the idea (which he calls'stickiness', ie how well the idea sticks), or whether the idea reaches avery small group of key people can trigger a dramatic epidemic of change insociety.
"In a given process or system some people matter morethan others." (p.19)."The success of any kind of socialepidemic is heavily dependent on the involvement of people with aparticular and rare set of social gifts." (p.33).
He divides thesegifted people into three categories: Connectors, Mavens and Salespeople."Sprinkled among every walk of life ... are a handful of people with atruly extraordinary knack of making friends and acquaintances.They areConnectors."(p. 41)."I always keep up with people." (p.44 quoting a "Connector")."in the case of Connectors,their ability to span many different worlds is a function of somethingintrinsic to their personality, some combination of curiosity,self-confidence, sociability, and energy." (p.49)."The pointabout Connectors is that by having a foot in so many different worlds theyhave the effect of bringing them all together."(p.51).
"Theword Maven comes from the Yiddish, and it means one who accumulatesknowledge." (p. 60)."The fact that Mavens want to help, for noother reason than because they like to help, turns out to be an awfullyeffective way of getting someone's attention."(p.67)."Theone thing that a Maven is not is a persuader.To be a Maven is to be ateacher.But it is also, even more emphatically to be a student."(p.69).
"There is also a select group of people -- Salesmen -- withthe skills to persuade us when we are unconvinced of what we arehearing." (p. 70).He goes on to describe an individual named Tom Gauwho is a Salesman."He seems to have some indefinable trait,something powerful and contagious and irresistible that goes beyond whatcomes out of his mouth, that makes people who meet him want to agree withhim.It's energy.It's enthusiasm.It's charm.It's likability.It'sall those things and yet something more."(p. 73).
He then goesinto the importance of actually gathering empirical data about ideas, andnot just relying on theory or assumption to determine quality, or as hecalls it, 'stickiness.'He gives examples of where assumptions have beendebunked with data."Kids don't watch when they are stimulated andlook away when they are bored.They watch when they understand and lookaway when they are confused." (p.102)."Children actually don'tlike commercials as much as we thought they did." (p. 118)"Thedriving force for a preschooler is not a search for novelty, like it iswith older kids, it's a search for understanding and predictability." (p. 126)Hence why your three year old can watch those Barney videos overand over until the tape breaks - it becomes predictable after the third orfourth viewing.This is probably also why Barney suddenly falls out offavor when predictability is less important than novelty.
Finally,there's a point he makes he calls the rule of 150.He starts with someBritish anthropologists idea that brain size, neocortex size actually, isrelated to the ability to handle the complexities of social groups.Thelarger the neocortex, the larger the social group that can be managed.Shethen charts primate neocortex size against known average social group sizesfor various primates, other than humans.Then she plugs human neocortexsize into the equation, and out pops 147.8, or about 150.Now that wouldbe not so interesting, except that he goes on to talk about this religiousgroup, the Hutterites.They are clannish like the Amish or Mennonites, andthey have a rule that when a colony approaches 150, they split into two andstart a new one.He follows that by noting that Military organizationsgenerally split companies at 150-200.And then he talks about Gore - thecompany that makes Goretex, among other things.They have a ~150 employeeper plant rule.
"At a bigger size you have to impose complicatedhierarchies and rules and regulations and formal measures to try to commandloyalty and cohesion.But below 150...it is possible to achieve the samegoals infomally." (p.180)
"When things get larger than that,people become strangers to one another." (p.181)
"Crossing the150 line is a small change that can make a big difference." (p.183)
On the whole, I thought the book sparked thought and converstaion,and will make me look at life and business a little differently.To methat's a good book.

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