Sunday, May 27, 2012

Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

Tipping Point was a very interesting read.  It read quite a bit like a marketing guru how-to book more than anything else.

This book talked about quite a few things ... Hush Puppies, the STD epidemic in Baltimore, the crime wave in New York city and how it all came to a halting stop, suicide in Micronesia, teenage smoking rates, Sesame Street, Blue's Clues, Gore-Tex, the rule of 150, Airwalk shoes, the Good Samaritan 'test' and on and on.  The book was full of stories and what it was about those unique stories that made them examples of tipping points.

And this essentially was the author's point ... that we tend to think we need complex solutions to our big problems, when in fact, all we need is to think about the situation a bit ... really understand it and then more often than not, a "band-aid" solution will fix it.

His closing remarks in the afterward were very interesting.  He said that with the explosion of the Information Age, we all need to beware of isolation and information overload.  The people who will really help us in this new age will be the Mavens.  If we can find Mavens, then the market or epidemic you are trying to start will be successful.

No comments:

Post a Comment