Earlier in the year I read and thoroughly enjoyed Malcolm Gladwell’s “Blink” so as a follow up I have just read Gladwell’s first book “The Tipping Point“. This explores the way in which ideas and products sometimes spread in the same way as epidemics and why many ideas and products don’t catch on. According to Gladwell’s hypothesis there are three “laws” that are critical to such an epidemic spread and can lead to a tipping point being reached – the involvement of various key types of people (Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen), the stickiness of the idea/product and the context in which the idea/product is spread.
I enjoyed the book but I didn’t find the case that Gladwell makes particularly novel or convincing although this could partly be because the book is now 10 years old and so I have picked up on some of the ideas in other books etc. (they’ve already tipped!). It has had may consider how I go about trying to put across ideas and I suspect that some of the thinking will stay with me in the future.
Tim O'Hare 