THE TIP POINT, how little things can make a big difference.

By MALCOLM GLADWELL

This book is about contagion, how an idea, a product, a book, a song, a movie or a phone can suddenly become the item to have. What makes one product successful while another fails? The point at which an article becomes a hit overnight is the “tipping point.” Once you hit the tipping point, there is no way to stop the flood.

It is like the flu virus, to some extent, the flu can be contained. Some people are getting over it, while others are suffering. That is the balance point. But if there is a small increase in the number of people who get the flu, the tipping point is reached and there is no way to stop the spread until it is extinct.

The inflection point is a non-fiction book on how to achieve that tipping point. What are the factors that cause an item to reach the tipping point, while a similar item will fail?

For something to reach a tipping point, it takes special people: connectors, experts, and salespeople. Connectors are people with a special gift for bringing people together, connecting them. Connectors know a lot of people, but it’s important not everyone is in the same circle. If, for example, you are all soccer players, then this is not a connector, no matter how many soccer players you know. A connector knows different groups of people, businessmen, athletes, actors, journalists, farmers, students, doctors; without the widest extent, the connection will fail.

Experts are the second essential type of person in creating word-of-mouth epidemics. An expert is a person who collects data and then reports it to people. They are obsessive with their particular knowledge, but more than that, they want to help everyone by sharing what they know. It could be how to save 20 cents on a can of dog food or what toothpaste really whitens your teeth. They dig into the details, keep records, notes, and prices. They know how to get cheap seats on the airlines, or which cars use the least fuel, and then they tell everyone what they have discovered. Experts want to help, because they like to feel involved, they want to share what they have discovered. Experts provide the message.

The third type of person required for word of mouth epidemics is the salesperson. It is the salespeople who persuade us when we are not convinced of what we are hearing. It is the salesperson who can find a twist that will convince the skeptic. These particular salespeople are empathetic, friendly, helpful, and most of all, persuasive. It’s the salespeople who build the peer pressure, to get everyone to line up.

Gladwell looks at the different factors that lead to the tipping point. He discusses them in detail with many examples, notably Paul Revere’s night ride which reached a successful turning point, while another night rider (Dawes) failed to wake up the local population and has since disappeared from history. Why was Paul Revere successful? He was a connector: he was a fisherman, hunter, card player, theater lover, successful businessman, and Masonic member, along with other social clubs. He knew people.

Gladwell uses examples of crime statistics that plummeted, syphilis cases that soared alarmingly, and the overnight success of Puppy Silence shoes when they were on the brink of extinction. Analyze the success of Sesame Street, the reduction of crime in the New York subway and smoking; all reached a “tipping point”.

“The world, as much as we want it, does not agree with our intuition. This is the second lesson of the Tipping Point. Those who are successful in creating social epidemics do not just do what they think is correct – intuitions. .. To make sense of social epidemics, we must first understand that human communication has its own set of very unusual and contradictory rules. “

Overall, it’s an interesting read with lots of examples and figures. It is not a boring book, on the contrary, it is easy to read with useful information, especially if you are trying to promote something or another.

And it could well be all of us.