This book is all about how things around will be affected by a simple or small change. This book is entitled “The Tipping Point” and is written by Malcolm Gladwell. I believe this is the best book among the three that I’ve read. For me this is the most interesting book of the three. The reason for that is because the different stories here are more relatable than the stories from the other two books. There are so many things that are interesting about this book.
The first thing that caught my attention was the first part of the book which contains the acclaims for this book. Just by reading those lines, you would get the feeling that there are a lot of things that you would learn from the book. True enough, once you’ve finished reading the book you would make certain realizations about life and agree with what Gladwell says in the book.
The next part that caught my attention is the part where he talked about yawning being contagious. Before reading this part I already know that yawning is a contagious act, that if one person sees you yawning he or she would also yawn few moments after you started yawning. What I didn’t know is that just by also reading the word “yawn”, a person would also be yawning, and I’ve experienced it first hand when I read this part. I yawned a few times before I finished reading that part, and after reading that part I said to myself that I shouldn’t read when I’m tired especially when there is the word “yawn”.
Next thing is chapter 1 when he started talking about the three rules of epidemics: Law of the Few, Stickiness Factor and Power of Context. In this chapter he talked generally about these rules. Law of the Few talks about a number of people who have exceptional characteristics that are able to spread epidemics. Stickiness Factor talks about the impact of the message on the people. Lastly, Power of Context talks about how people are affected by the environment that they are in. One thing that sticks to my mind in this discussion about Power of Context is “When people are in a group, in other words, responsibility for acting is diffused”. I believe that this is true. A good example for this would be those group activities when in school. When things seem to not go well, the members of the group would start blaming each other that this person is at fault and one would say that another person is at fault, and so on, until they don’t know already who is responsible for that failure in the group. They would continue blaming each other, until one of them claims to be responsible for what happened. I believe that most people don’t want to take responsibilities especially if it is a big one; they are better off staying quiet in one corner rather than helping others for a good outcome.
The next chapter is where things get really interesting. The next chapter is a chapter about the Law of the Few but this time it is elaborated more. This is where we learn about Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen. There is just one thing that I didn’t like about this chapter and that is there are a lot of names given. Sometimes I get confused with names – especially when he was branching out the connection of certain people – they are really a lot, but good thing is it didn’t become a hindrance for me to enjoy reading this chapter. For me being the Connector is the most interesting role among the three. Being the connector means you know a lot of people and knowing a lot of people for me means a lot more opportunities in life. I envy Roger Horchow and Lois Weisberg. How I wish I am like them. I envy them because I know that knowing a lot of people would give me an advantage in life. Whenever I need something say for example in business, I could ask a lot of different person for help. Reading about their stories makes me really envious of them; I wish that I am like them who seem to like each and every one that they meet. One thing that I learned from their stories is that knowing a lot of people doesn’t also mean having a lot of friends. Getting to know different people doesn’t always mean befriending them – I always thought that if you get to know a person you are already considering him or her as a friend but I was wrong. For me in business, having more acquaintance is better than having a lot of friends. I think having a lot of friends in business would just have more bias since you have that certain relationship rather than an acquaintance which you are not that familiar with. I think becoming a Connector is also a hard thing to be. Take for example Revere and Dawes, Revere was able to spread word of mouth while Dawes was not able to. Revere was more familiar with the places around Boston rather than Dawes. You have to be familiar with a lot of things to become a good Connector. You need to be familiar not just with the people but also be with the places around you. For me being a Maven and Salesman is almost the same. I know that in the book Gladwell said that Mavens are not persuaders but for me eventually being a Maven would lead to be a Salesman too. Mavens are said to be the knowledgeable ones about a certain subject and Salesman are let’s say the persuaders. In my perspective if I would be a Maven I would admit that I would be a sooner or later be a persuader. I guess I said this because of my personality. If I am a person of knowledgeable about something, let’s say I’m an expert in a certain area, and I would be asked by a certain person about that area of expertise, then eventually I get to know that he or she doesn’t agree with me, I would probably persuade that person. I would persuade that person for the reason that he or she asked about my area of expertise and he or she wouldn’t agree with me, for me that would be quite insulting in my part. If he or she would do that, I suggest that they just ask people who just know a little about that thing and not those experts. I believe that if you are knowledgeable about something especially if you are expert in that part it would be hard not to be a persuader in order to convince certain people. I believe with what the Law of the Few wanted to say to us, that epidemics are started because of certain person or people. These people may not be that many but their words are so powerful that they are able to create word of mouth without having too much trouble. They are very influential people that we shouldn’t just ignore because we won’t know that maybe they are the solutions to our problems when it comes to the epidemics happening around. The next chapter is about the Stickiness Factor and for me this is where I was really able to relate the most. Perhaps this is the most relatable part for me because I grew up watching educational television shows. I remember when I was a kid I always enjoy watching these kind of TV shows. Not that I don’t watch it anymore, it’s just that I don’t enjoy it as I enjoyed it when I was a kid, especially Blue’s Clues. I was only able to watch a few episode of Sesame Street, so I’m not that familiar with how the show really goes, unlike Blue’s Clues that I get to watch that is why I’m familiar with it. I am happy that I get to read to read this book because I was able to know the story behind the success of such shows. And I must say that what they went through just to become that successful is a very though path. The development of the shows are very interesting especially Blue’s Clues, where so much thinking happened just to produce that successful show. I am amazed how they conducted their studies, they were so patient about everything and they really give attention to such small details about the reaction of children. I learned from this story that to be able to achieve success you would really need to work hard, do a lot of research and go into every small details of the business. I agree with what the Stickiness Factor wanted to say, that in order to spark epidemics you would need to make messages memorable to the people who would hear or read about it. It has to stick to their minds that whenever they see something that is related to your message, they would eventually remember what really your message is. The next chapter is about Power of Context which I think I had a lot of realizations about life. I totally agree with Gladwell that the environment is a big factor when it comes to the behavior or personality of a person. The thing that really caught me here is the magic number 150. I agree with the idea that in order to have a successful team, you need to keep it into small groups. You need to know each and every one of those people in the group; if there are more people in your group then there would be more people to know about rather than having only a few to know. Also part in this book it is also said that we are only able to handle a certain amount of information, so if we have a lot of people in a group there would be more information and I believe that we are not able to remember all those information about everyone.
Also another idea that I got from this chapter is, knowing the strengths of each and every one in the group would really help you a lot. Knowing their strengths would give you the idea which tasks they could do and which they cannot. Once they already know what their tasks are, then they would be able to focus and keep track on that area of expertise. By doing this each person would have the responsibility to inform the whole group about the new developments in their field of expertise. In this way say for example, the leader wouldn't be carrying that much of a burden in a group doing every task. The most interesting chapter for me would be the Case Study. It is the most interesting because the stories that were told in that chapter were very intriguing. I never thought that such things could happen, especially those suicide cases. I think the saying; “action speaks louder than words” is the best way to summarize the story behind those cases. Just by saying that action, people of the same let’s say, world, of that person who committed suicide they were able to get what they wanted to say. Another thing that is very interesting about this chapter is how Gladwell talked about smoking, which we all know has been always a problem for the government. Reading this chapter made me realize about a lot of things especially the problem about smoking. I would blame all the fault of having such cases to the saying “Curiosity kills”. After reading this chapter I would say that these cases happen – like suicide and the smoking case – because people are curious of what the others are doing. It’s like giving them the idea that “if they could do it, then I could do it too.” I would like to quote some parts on the later part of the book that I really liked and I agree with. “This is the first lesson of the Tipping Point. Starting epidemics requires concentrating resources on a key few areas” I agree with this because nothing would really happen if we are to work with all areas, we must focus in just a small area. We must not think of the larger picture first because a large picture would not be large if not for small ones. Another is: “The world – much as we want it to – does not accord with our intuition. This is the second lesson of the Tipping Point” I also agree with this because we really can’t have control on everything around us. We have to accept that there are certain things that would not go with the flow that we want. We have to accept that everything that we wanted to happen would not always happen. What you want is not always what you get. “To make sense of social epidemics, we must first understand that human communication has its own set of very unusual and counterintuitive rules.” In relation to what I have preciously said, there are things that wouldn’t go our way and have their own way. There are certain things that we can’t push our way through. If it doesn’t go with the flow that we want, then let it go, maybe there is another thing that is meant to happen. “Relying on the Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen in our life is the way we deal with the complexity of the modern world.” I totally agree with this because we would never survive on our own. “No man is an island” would be the best saying to associate this line with. We wouldn’t be able to make sense of the world if we would not ask for the help of others. “When people are overwhelmed with information and develop immunity to traditional forms of communication, they turn instead for advice and information to the people in their lives whom they respect, admire and trust. The cure for immunity is finding Mavens, Connectors, and Salesmen.” I agree with this because not all the people that we respect, admire, and trust are knowledgeable about certain things. Their knowledge is only limited to a certain degree, so we can’t really rely on them all the times. Therefore, we must have at least a Connector, Maven and Salesman in our life. I am happy that I’ve read this book. I learned a lot from Malcolm Gladwell. His books are really amusing, especially this book The Tipping Point. I learned a lot from this book, and basically, for me, what he is trying to say in this book is just meeting a certain person may make your life change a lot. You’ll never know, that person might be your life changer, be it for success or for failure. In addition, understanding the roles of the people around you would be one of the greatest factors that would lead you to success.