The Tipping Point

It is usually quite easy to work out if something has been particularly successful - generally someone has made pots of cash, and the product or message in question can be seen everywhere. But how that success was achieved is more often than not more difficult to ascertain. Sure, with some companies, it's simply a matter of throwing enough money at a problem until the market is saturated with information on your product. But there are a huge number of anomalies, strange happenings that seem to go against conventional knowledge. Gladwell uses the example of Hush Puppies in America as a backbone to this work - a brand that was struggling, and then seemingly without trying was suddenly in demand and recording record profits. Hush Puppies had reached their 'tipping point'. Essentially this is an economic theory crossed with social understanding. The tipping point itself is the point at which an idea suddenly takes hold and becomes popular. Using one or more of three types of people (connectors, 'mavens', and salesmen) and in the correct circumstances anything can be made to reach its tipping point. The theory, it seems, can even be applied to less tangible things such as the drop in crime in New York in the 1990s. This isn't a long piece of work and certainly isn't written in a manner that will lose a reader. I never thought I'd find economic theory so interesting. There are certain points where Gladwell seems to be labouring and repeating, but overall this is informative and entertaining, and if you happen to be starting your own business, or even just running a personal website, it will certainly make you wonder how you're going to find your own tipping point. And it seems that Malcolm Gladwell's theory has touched a nerve as The Tipping Point has certainly reached its own.