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

by Malcolm Gladwell
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

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ISBN13: 9780316346627
ISBN10: 0316346624
Condition: Standard


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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

Why did crime in New York drop so suddenly in the mid-90s? How does an unknown novelist end up a bestselling author? Why is teenage smoking out of control, when everyone knows smoking kills? What makes TV shows like Sesame Street so good at teaching kids how to read? Why did Paul Revere succeed with his famous warning?

In this brilliant and groundbreaking book, New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell looks at why major changes in our society so often happen suddenly and unexpectedly. Ideas, behavior, messages, and products, he argues, often spread like outbreaks of infectious disease. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a few fare-beaters and graffiti artists fuel a subway crime wave, or a satisfied customer fill the empty tables of a new restaurant. These are social epidemics, and the moment when they take off, when they reach their critical mass, is the Tipping Point.

In The Tipping Point, Gladwell introduces us to the particular personality types who are natural pollinators of new ideas and trends, the people who create the phenomenon of word of mouth. He analyzes fashion trends, smoking, children's television, direct mail and the early days of the American Revolution for clues about making ideas infectious, and visits a religious commune, a successful high-tech company, and one of the world's greatest salesmen to show how to start and sustain social epidemics.

The Tipping Point is an intellectual adventure story written with an infectious enthusiasm for the power and joy of new ideas. Most of all, it is a road map to change, with a profoundly hopeful message — that one imaginative person applying a well-placed lever can move the world.

Review

"[A] lively, timely and engaging study of fads....Gladwell...has a knack for explaining psychological experiments clearly; The Tipping Point is worth reading just for what it tells us about how we try to make sense out of the world." Alan Wolfe, The New York Times Book Review

Review

"A terrifically rewarding read." Seattle Times

Review

"Gladwell has a knack for rendering complex theories in clear, elegant prose, and he makes a charismatic tour guide." San Francisco Chronicle

Review

"As a business how-to, The Tipping Point is truly superior, brimming with new theories on the science of manipulation." Time Out

Review

"A wonderful page-turner about a wonderfully offbeat study of that little-understood phenomenon, the social epidemic." Daily Telegraph (London)

Review

"While it offers a smorgasbord of intriguing snippets...this volume betrays its roots as a series of articles for The New Yorker, where Gladwell is a staff writer: his trendy material feels bloated and insubstantial in book form." Publishers Weekly

Review

"[A]n incisive and piquant theory of social dynamics that is bound to provoke a paradigm shift in our understanding of mass behavioral change....Gladwell reveals that our cherished belief in the autonomy of the self is based in great part on wishful thinking." Booklist

Review

"[A] fascinating account...valuable..." Chicago Tribune

Review

"Highly recommended for its clear exposition of important issues." KLIATT

Review

"It's hard not to be persuaded by Gladwell's thesis. Not only does he assemble a fascinating mix of facts in support of his theory...but he also manages to weave everything into a cohesive explanation of human behavior....There's little doubt that the material will keep you awake." Business Week

Review

"Anyone interested in fads should read The Tipping Point....An ambitious, well-written book on how seemingly small ideas can change the world." Us

Review

"A fascinating book that makes you see the world in a different way." Fortune

Review

"An elegant exploration of how social epidemics work, whether they are fashion trends, diseases, or behavior patterns such as crime." Deidre Donahue, USA Today

Review

"The Tipping Point assembles talking points from childhood development, marketing, and social epidemiology, and holds them up at an angle that lets one distant notion attach to another....An ingenious guide." Richard Lacayo, Time

Review

"The thrust of Gladwell's book is that seemingly small gestures can have fantastically large and rapid outcomes....The Tipping Point could well prove to be an influential text for political activists." Timothy Noah, Washington Monthly

Synopsis

The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or a drop in the crime rate.

This bestselling book, in which Malcolm Gladwell brilliantly illuminates the tipping point phenomenon, is already changing the way people throughout the world think about selling products and disseminating ideas.


About the Author

Malcolm Gladwell is a former business and science writer at the Washington Post. He is currently a staff writer for The New Yorker.

Table of Contents

Introduction 3
1 The Three Rules of Epidemics 15
2 The Law of the Few: Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen 30
3 The Stickiness Factor: Sesame Street, Blue's Clues, and the Educational Virus 89
4 The Power of Context (Part One): Bernie Goetz and the Rise and Fall of New York City Crime 133
5 The Power of Context (Part Two): The Magic Number One Hundred and Fifty 169
6 Case Study: Rumors, Sneakers, and the Power of Translation 193
7 Case Study: Suicide, Smoking, and the Search for the Unsticky Cigarette 216
8 Conclusion: Focus, Test, and Believe 253
Endnotes 260
Acknowledgments 271
Index 273

4.4 11

What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating 4.4 (11 comments)

`
leeny526 , January 30, 2013 (view all comments by leeny526)
Malcolm Gladwell writes an inspired book from start to finish. He categorizes and dives into detail on how an idea in our culture "sticks" and spreads, motivating the reader to be introspective and determine their value and strengths in "being the change" in our society. This can help as an overall positive boost in our day to day life as well as those who are venturing into entrepreneurship. I highly recommend this book to those with an open mind and seeking to enrich their perspective of what works and doesn't work in their lives as well as finding their personal tipping points.

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seldombites , November 26, 2011 (view all comments by seldombites)
I just could not get into this book. I found it to be a dry and difficult read, jumping all over the place and lingering on points that needed only a few sentences or paragraphs. Other people might enjoy this book, but it was not for me.

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Lawrence Lai , April 06, 2011 (view all comments by Lawrence Lai)
This again is a great book by Gladwell, though I personally like Outliers the best because it is the most personal. This is more of broad strokes of social behavior. But still it is a wonderfully insightful read on what causes a tipping point to occur. In all, I think it presents great ideas, though I believe it is subject to quite a bit of reasoning and one can argue one way or another whether these hypothesis are true or not. A great thing with Gladwell is he forms his arguments in a very comprehensible way, keeping one engaged. So even though you may not necessarily agree with what is said, you would at least stick around to find out what he's on about.

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Brandon Royal , December 27, 2010 (view all comments by Brandon Royal)
The Tipping Point is a permanent fixture in my personal library. Not only is this book one of the best trade hardbacks I’ve ever read, but it’s also a book that I continue to look to it in order to make meaningful changes in my professional life. As an author and independent publisher who aspires to turn my “little book” educational series into a global brand, I recently reread the Tipping Point in the hopes of gleaning from it clues on how I could create a tipping point in my own publishing business. First, I sought to better understand the people around me: who exactly are those mavens, salespersons, and connectors? Second, I started tinkering with the way information was worded on promotional materials. The goal was to make the message more “sticky.” I started by focusing on one of my education books titled The Little Blue Reasoning Book: 50 Powerful Principles for Clear and Effective Thinking. This book is one in a four-part series and sister to The Little Red Writing Book, The Little Gold Grammar Book, and The Little Green Math Book. Upon publication, I noticed that initial sales of The Little Blue Reasoning Book were lagging behind the sales of my other three books. I found this somewhat surprising as I had expected the “blue book” to vie with The Little Red Writing Book for first place in the series. Although I recognize that reasoning skills do not address as clear a niche market as do writing, grammar, and math skills, I also believe that a book on reasoning skills represents a more unique educational offering. Reasoning skills are, after all, one of the most important yet seldom taught skills. My original flap copy on the backside of the book contained standard descriptive sentences such as: “Reasoning skills help us make sense of the world, including how to make decisions, tackle opportunities, evaluate claims, and solve problems.” For promotional purposes, I tinkered with the stickiness and came up with: “This book is based on a simple but powerful observation: Individuals who develop outstanding reasoning and thinking skills do so primarily by mastering a limited number of the most important reasoning principles and concepts, which they use over and over again. What are these recurring principles and concepts? The answer to this question is the basis of this book.” The Tipping Point is based on three rules: the law of the few (mavens, salespersons, and connectors), content (stickiness), and context (environment and circumstances). As I started to think of ways to marry the concepts of stickiness and context, I came up with the following verbiage: “Never has there been a time when one idea can make a bigger difference. In the case of thinking and reasoning skills, one idea or concept — creative or analytical — can greatly influence the outcome of a personal or business decision. The more we fulfill our own potentials, the better we can contribute to our communities.” The principles advocated by the Tipping Point continue to be an integral part of my book marketing efforts. The bet is that little, incremental things do make a big difference. Brandon Royal, award-winning educational author, www.brandonroyal.com

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Lars , January 06, 2010 (view all comments by Lars)
Gladwell's storytelling gift combined with both the variety of social topics and the applicability of his findings make The Tipping Point a strong best-of-the-decade category. Also inspired one of the key buzzwords of the decade.

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Felicia Herman , January 04, 2010 (view all comments by Felicia Herman)
I found a lot of truth in this small book - I gave a copy to the co-owner of the advertising agency I was working for at the time. It also led me to seek out the rest of Malcolm Gladwell's writing, so it's been a continuing education for me. He's a John McPhee for the 21st century.

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warrenss , January 01, 2010 (view all comments by warrenss)
Still relevant, impactful and great after all this time.

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Effie , July 19, 2009 (view all comments by Effie)
The book has many fascinating premises--and tries (sometimes very successfully) to explain them. For example, how does some fashion suddenly become so trendy that everyone is wearing it? How does a restaurant suddenly become the place to eat? Most of the answers boil down to people--and how some folks just hook up two intersted parties altruistically--and help the trends along.

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Currer1013 , February 26, 2007 (view all comments by Currer1013)
Ever wonder how something becomes "hip"? Do you look at other people's shoes and think, "Good grief. How did that become 'the thing'?" "The Tipping Point" explains how something as mundane and innocuous as Hush Puppies can become the hippest thing to own, how a regularly occuring phenomena like school violence can become A Social Problem, and how to make something hip. Read it to refute faulty theories at parties, or to come up with some theories of your own on how things become popular--or infamous.

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Lili , November 15, 2006 (view all comments by Lili)
It's amazing how fast new ideas and trends can take off nowadays. Because of my grandpa having Alzheimer's (so painful for us, the family members that he doesn't recognize), I'll take the example of the craze for "mental fitness." We have a head, a brain and all we have been doing for years is workout our body without thinking about exercising our brain just as importantly. Then Alzheimer's comes, the baby-boomers phenomena and scientists discover that contrary to a false belief we CAN grow new cells IF we stimulate our brain regularly. Now, suddenly Nintendo sells millions of brain video games and brain gyms like Agogus.com (which I joined) become the great thing to do. I'm amazed and delighted by this continuous progress and I highly recommend this book.

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sejalkanoi , May 08, 2006 (view all comments by sejalkanoi)
this book though made an interesting read, it still could not explain alot of things, case study was good their approach of coming to a conclusion very good yet the book is cold and makes out human beings to be like robots, there are so many things you cant tag to a living being. i have recommended the book to sev people from diff prof and bckgrnds, and one relative commented whatever the book has to say can be learnt much better practically. cheers to the author for making an attempt but the style of writing does not make me want to read the book again. on the other hand sorry for a comparison but books like the alchemist though dealing with a different topic, make a long lasting impact. the author seems to know the human mind much better based on the sixth sense and not some lab case studies. ps: not all humans can be scrutinised under a micrscope like a specimen.

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Product Details

ISBN:
9780316346627
Binding:
Trade Paperback
Publication date:
01/07/2002
Publisher:
HACHETTE BOOK GROUP
Pages:
304
Height:
.90IN
Width:
5.50IN
Thickness:
.75
Number of Units:
1
Copyright Year:
2002
UPC Code:
2800316346629
Author:
Malcolm Gladwell
Media Run Time:
B
Subject:
Causality
Subject:
Causation
Subject:
Contagion
Subject:
Context effects
Subject:
Context effects (psychology)
Subject:
Psychology, Social.

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