Malcolm Gladwell has written five books, all of which have been on the New York Times bestseller list. He is extremely readable.

This now-famous book is about popular ideas and products, and how they spread through society. Starting off small at first, they slowly gather momentum until they reach a 'tipping point', where they take off and become fantastically popular. This book is all about the mechanics of how this happens, and the different types of people and businesses enabling the process.

The best bits for me? The illustration of how we are all incredibly different - how some people are freakishly sociable, others are freakishly knowing, informative and knowledgeable, whilst others have the charisma to sell you anything. Given Gladwell's clear examples I was easily able to slot a couple of my friends into these categories, and therefore relate to the ideas he was describing. These are the movers and shakers - the people who make things happen.

He uses a wide range of phenomena to illustrate the idea of social epidemics - the rise to popularity of Hush Puppy shoes, a sudden decline of crime in New York, the success of the children's programmes Sesame Street and Blue Clues, the cleaning up of the New York subway, the spread of new corn seed in Iowa in the 1930s, an increase of suicides in the South Pacific islands of Micronesia, plus the reasons why smoking has drastically increased amongst teenagers in the US, despite strenuous efforts to discourage it. I was impressed by the wide range of his examples.

My one criticism is that it was all rather predictable. The relationship between causes and effects were often ones I had heard before, or that I had worked out for myself. Unlike the book Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything I didn't feel that I was being exposed to some really original ideas behind society's statistics.

Still - an interesting read by an excellent writer. It clarified several concepts I already had, and made them a lot less woolly.

I realize I’m a little late to this book. It was published in 2002, and many of my friends have already read it. This is the second of his books I’ve read, and I find myself again slightly uncomfortable. I realize what was tolerable twenty years ago differs from today. So maybe he needs to update it. Or, just like some thing’s were always wrong, regardless of historical context, maybe it’s just wrong.

I have to wonder what Michelle Alexander would say to Malcolm Gladwell on his chapter talking about crime. This whole chapter in crime was triggering for me. I remember when Bernard Goetz killed those four youths. I remember him being glorified for murdering them in the name of vigilante justice. I remember him being let go. Despite his deep psychological issues, despite having committed four deadly crimes in the space of minutes in front of many witnesses, he was set free. Gladwell could’ve made his point without this example, where a white man was not held accountable for the four lives he took, all of whom were Black. And at the end of the chapter, he pretty much gives Goetz a pass for behaving in an excusable way given his environment. WtF!

He also uses examples where women are painted in sexist hues, using words and phrases like, “would she be able to handle everything by herself (financially, if her husband died)”, in another chapter, he uses the example of a woman, calling her “castrating.”

Then there’s the issue of class. He doesn’t define what constitutes a “good neighborhood” or a “good family” but says a juvenile’s success can be determined by both factors.

I was also deeply disturbed by his parallel between teen suicide in Micronesia and teen smoking in the Western Hemisphere. I really wish he’d used a different example. Suicide and smoking are not analogous in any context since the former results in a total and sudden loss of life, not to mention that there are too many cultural differences between Micronesia and the entire Western Hemisphere. They are simply incomparable. I say the same thing when he compared these same smokers to the school shootings that are so commonplace these days. They are incomparable. He should’ve used different examples, or he should’ve used just one rather than trying to compare them. Plus, I question the accuracy of his smokers’ profile, given there was no data to accompany it - just a British psychologist’s written observations from an undocumented time. Certainly, I don’t fit the profile, and I was a chain smoker for many years.

Some of the conclusions were illogical. Citing studies where one thing should be concluded by the absence of the other is not necessarily the right conclusion. You have to test the absent portion first. Without the second set of data, the first conclusion is exposed to fallacy. Maybe that absence was considered, but because he jumps to the conclusion without it, it makes me wonder if it was. It’s like saying you will lose weight if you stop drinking soda. Well, would that still be the only logical conclusion if you you were sick or you were increasing your exercise, or what if you increased your chocolate intake while eliminating soda? So this makes me question the soundness of the rest of his conclusions. It’s not to say I throw out everything he says, but it is to wonder how much of it I can trust.

If he were to update some of the sociopolitical contexts I mentioned and if he were to include how the tipping point works in social media, I would definitely be interested in rereading it. But somehow, I get the feeling he is showing us who he really is - someone with a sexist mind, a classist attitude, and a racist outlook, which is doubly unfortunate given that he's half Black himself.

there were only a couple interesting points. mostly it felt like "wow! look at this very popular thing! before it happened, this other thing happened. there might be a cause and effect there!"

This book deals with epidemics, both medical and social. It explains the principles of epidemic transmission. Gladwell uses examples such as syphilis, suicide, AIDS, teenage smoking, and crime reduction. He looks at how and why certain products “catch on” in popular culture. He examines advertising methods and receptivity to new ideas.

Gladwell explains the differences between connectors, mavens, salesmen, & translators. I am particularly interested in psychology and sociology, and this book relates the results of a variety of studies. I particularly enjoyed hearing about the psychological concepts behind childhood learning, and how the concepts of stickiness and context were used in the creation of Sesame Street and Blues Clues.

Published in 2000, it is a little dated, with references to letters, fax machines, 1-800 numbers, and Rolodexes. The author includes an Afterward to address some questions he has been asked since publication. It could use further updating, especially with regard to the pervasive use of social media. It would be interesting to find out what Gladwell thinks about the current pandemic.

Enjoyed a lot of the studies and ideas here, including the parts about New York City crime, Sesame Street, and the similarity between the problems of teen suicide and teen smoking.

This is a great Gladwell book with lots to think about. Like most his books there is a sense of pointlessness to it, even as Gladwell pounds out its relevance... hmm, that's a pretty vague statement. What I mean is that there is nothing groundbreaking here. The basic message is that it takes a certain specific amount of skill in specific things, and certain specific kinds of luck (or ill luck) for societal changes to happen, whether they are about fashion or crime. That's not news. Anyway, regardless, the book leaves the reader thinking. And that's the charm of Gladwell.

I had this sense that people like The Tipping Point more than other Gladwell books, so I had higher expectations for it. It's not any better than his other books, but only very much the same. Maybe even a bit less because it's pretty short (3 hours on audio). Perhaps it's just the first Gladwell book many fans read.

As always, Gladwell reads wonderfully.

Holy suppositions, Gladwell! There's a whole lotta coulds, may haves, apparentlies, perhapses up in here!

Malcolm Gladwell's basic premise in The Tipping Point: To explain how word-of-mouth is spread.

A couple of the examples he used were how crime was reduced in NYC under Giuliani's reign and how an old, dead-in-the-water brand of shoes seemingly suddenly were selling like hotcakes. But honestly, my favorite bit was the section on Sesame Street.

It's interesting stuff, no doubt with some truth to it, hell maybe even all of it, but it seemed like every hypothesis put forth was followed by misrepresentation of studies. Scientists were quoted as saying that possibly their study pointed towards such-and-such a conclusion, and then Gladwell took it and ran with it. That's not the case through out the book, but even if it only happens once, it casts doubt on the whole freaking thing.

There were times I hated this and times I actually enjoyed it. In fact, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, more than I wanted to. For you see, this is the sort of thing feasted upon by ladder-climbing, power-lunchers, who want to put Gladwell's theories into practice for the purposes of creating their own wildfire word-of-mouth epidemic in the exalted name of the great and almighty greenback. That sort of greed, rising above the heads of most of humanity to serve the bloodsucking desires of one, is repellent.

I guess I'm one of the few who didn't read this about 10 years or more back. I resisted for a while, but succumbed to peer pressure and misrepresentation of the book's content. Regardless, here I am. I've read it and probably you have too. So I ask you, is this shit or is it genius? After all, this stupid little book managed to put its theories into practice and the damn thing blew up like nobody's business.

It has a number of eye openers and will broaden one’s vision to see how little things matter so much.

A combination of lucid explanation with vivid (and often funny) real-world examples, the book sets out to explain nothing less than why human beings behave the way they do.

Human behavior is fascinating, when it goes well and when it goes awry. So many of us go through so much of our lives almost on autopilot, acting, reacting, maybe spending a few moments of introspection trying to understand ourselves and others, and some of us actually look into research for the light it might shine into this uninformed fog. Malcolm Gladwell likes to dissect human behavior and patterns, and I'm glad he does. I learn from his efforts.

That said, I do understand the limitations inherent in studying anything as complex as individuals or groups of people. Still, 'Tipping Point' gives an interesting and believable account of why some phenomena take off with little effort and others fail even with a concerted push.

Gladwell distills this down to several key components:

--stickiness factor (how memorable/salient something is)
--the power of influence by information collectors and the connectors in society (who knows who and who knows what--the people we know and trust and are willing to listen to)
--the law of the few (group dynamics work differently depending on size and crossing the threshold of 150 will significantly change outcomes and dynamics)
--the power of context (our environments influence our behavior, even when counter to what we feel our character is at the core).

Gladwell gives multiple examples of how these basic tenets played out in historical events, from the creation of Sesame Street and Blues Clues, to the development of Airwalk shoes, to the clusters of teenage suicides, to a sudden drop in crime in NYC, to experiments in being in prison, to smoking, to our willingness to intervene with someone who has a problem or is being victimized, to our use of telemarketing, email and cell phones, to school shootings. Looking at these events like "social epidemics", he breaks down the beginnings and the trajectories followed, until what began as more isolated things "tipped" into being a widespread phenomenon; the good, the bad, and the sometimes ugly. He outlines the research showing the influences that move the masses to action from a more passive stance. He contends that "epidemics" are sensitive to the conditions and circumstances to the time and place in which they occur, and that if we want to stop one from continuing, it often can be done with smaller, more minor changes rather than seeing it as tackling a huge issue. Example, cleaning up the subways (removing trash and graffiti and arresting those committing minor infractions) sent the message crime was not to be tolerated and a significant drop overall resulted.

Admittedly, I'm a geek when it comes to this stuff, and always find new things to consider as a result. But, in reading about the prison experiment, where the experiment was discontinued before completion after the subjects (both those jailed and those who functioned as guards) began to behave in such problematic ways, in contrast to their expressed values and self-identified character, I drew immediate parallels to all the stories (fictional and real) that surface when war is conducted. I thought about recent stories of atrocities being alleged in Ukraine, where I've asked myself how anyone could commit such heinous acts. This book explained it...in that "circumstances and context" that takes over and promotes and allows that kind of behavior when a different circumstance and context would reign it in. The law of the few versus the law of the many. It made sense. Not that it excuses it...but I could see how it happens within this framework.

Despite dealing with some heavy topics, this was written in a completely accessible way. Anyone interested in human behavior and what causes "fads" would likely enjoy this and get much from it. I certainly did. I listened on audio, but stopped from time to time to make myself notes of what was being said. My attention almost never wandered as I listened, it was so well put together.

I picked this one up based on various recommendations, having no idea how fitting it would be for our current situation. It's a book about various kinds of epidemic and about identifying the point at which things go "viral" or "tip." Lots of good food for thought, not just in terms of understanding the whole COVID crisis of 2020 but also for considering how mob mentality works (riots were burning through the country, destroying businesses and neighborhoods as I was reading this). The book also describes certain kinds of people who have a disproportionate effect on the opinions of others, the enduring popularity of smoking among teens, the copycat effect with suicide and school violence, the appeal of particular kids' shows or brands of shoes, the way environmental factors (broken windows in a neighborhood or graffiti on the subway, for example) seem to give people permission to behave in ways they otherwise wouldn't, and so on.

Gladwell tends to take an evolutionary and deterministic approach to some of these social trends. It's as if individuals in certain circumstances can't help how they behave. But he's got a point. Circumstances and environments do grease the skids toward certain kinds of choices.

A thought-provoking book, with a lots of takeaways for pastors, marketers, civic leaders, and really anyone wanting to better understand how small decisions and seemingly minor events can shape an entire culture.

This book is fascinating and I was disappointed to read that many other readers didn't think so. So here's my response.

I think those readers are approaching this book the wrong the way when they critisize Gladwell for his inability to prove his points thoroughly. Sure, Gladwell could have dotted every i and crossed every t and shown every counter-example to the theories he's proposing. There's a word for the books that accomplish that: BORING. Gladwell is a storyteller and he knows how to keep the reader involved. By going into too much detail, he would lose his audience. Hopefully the reader who isn't convinced entirely can go into further detail by reading Gladwell's sources which are exhaustively referenced in the back of the book.

Another criticism is that Gladwell doesn't come to a specific point or that his points are hazy (this was probably more true with "Blink"). I almost want to say "who cares?" This book and "Blink" are veritable digests of the latest advances in psychology and sociology. So what if the overarching idea of the book is loose? You have now understood countless fascinating anecdotes which you can reconstruct in your own way. It is Gladwell's loose structure that allows him to connect these disparate dots in a story that you can digest, and despite the accusations that he is not precise about his overall thesis, the individual incidents are very well explained.

I love knowing the differences between Sesame Street and Blue's Clues and the differences between an adult's and a child's cognitive capabilities. Would I have read an entire book devoted solely to that? Probably not, but I was happy to read a chapter devoted to it, and a very well-written one at that.

Perhaps I approach non-fiction in a different way than most--and I will admit that I'm fascinated by almost any new, dramatically different idea about any subject, regardless of whether or not I believe it to be true--but I think that people who go into this book seeking a different way of thinking about the world around us, macro & microcosmically, will enjoy themselves. Those who go into the book seeking to be convinced beyond doubt that that way of thinking is the correct way, will not.

Malcolm Gladwell discusses how trends spread, or reach their "Tipping Point" in this thought provoking book. He identifies 3 Laws in his theory:

1. The law of the few:

Gladwell identifies 3 types of people that aid in "tipping" trends:

Connecters- Socially outgoing people who seem to know everyone (he cites Paul Revere as an example)

Mavens- A person who likes to collect information on various subjects or products, and delights in distributing it to friends to aid in their decision making process. A maven also knows where the deals are. For example if you want to buy a car but have no idea which model gets the best gas mileage, you might want to seek out a maven.

Salesmen- A person blessed with the gifts of gab and empathy, they are able to persuade people.

2. Stickyness Factor:

The art of making a message memorable- Gladwell examines the world of children's television for examples of this.

3. The Power of Context:

The law of 150: 150 people is the maximum amount that we can have in our circle of friends and still maintain a meaningful relationship with. I was skeptical of this until I looked at my facebook page, and saw that my friend list is nearing 150.

Gladwell uses these examples and other enthralling case studies to drive home his points.

I was surprised at the writing style employed in the book. It wasn't poor by any means, it was just very repetitive. While I can understand that the author did this to ensure that his ideas stick with the reader, it got annoying rather quickly. Gladwell also cited many sources verbatim, using long block quotes, which made some sections of the book tough to wade through. Also he needed better organization, the chapters were too long.

The Tipping Point is a quick read, and a must-read for anyone with a business, marketing, or management background. However, the case studies are so intriguing that they should interest the casual reader as well.

This was my #1 book of 2000, and made my Top 25 of the decade as well.