Malcolm Gladwell interests me for one reason only. I wonder how it is that this man's book spent many many weeks on top of the new york times best seller list?(But then again look at the new york times best sellers list.) What struck me the most about this book is its total lack of in depth analysis. The question which lead to the writing of this book has to do with how fads start. He explains the process of what takes place in order for a fad to happen with the implication that if these steps are not met then the fad will not happen. This to a certain point is interesting, where the book disappoints is that he never gets into why one fad is started presumably at the expense of another. Suppose we have two things in the possession of a connector/maven, why does this maven/connector choose one thing over the other. Presumably these types of people also own other things and wear more than one pair of shoes or pants. Why the Levi's instead of the Dockers or the Nike's instead of the Reeboks?

This is Gladwell's most thorough book. It has everything that I wanted from Outliers and Blink: research, diagnosis, and a clear call to action. Although admittedly, the research is not quite as fun as it is in his two following books.

If I had Gladwell's attention, I would ask him this: How do you capitalize on your role as either a Connector, Maven, or Salesmen? And what if you are none of the above, but rather a part of the phenomenon-following mob? Can you aspire to a different role than the one you are naturally gifted with? I identified with the Maven, as I'm sure most journalists do. So what do I do with that beyond disseminating news and culture? Can a Maven be a trend setter or a Connector? Since I don't have Gladwell's attention, I guess that is rhetorical.

One thing I love about Gladwell is that he presents strong theory and analysis in a way that allows for variance. One of my favorite quotes from this book: "That's why social change is so volatile and so often inexplicable, because it is the nature of all of us to be volatile and inexplicable."

I made the mistake of reading three of Malcolm Gladwell's books on the trot and as his style of writing doesn't alter and he goes into every point he wants to make in very great depth and detail I was having to force myself to finish Tipping Point. That isn't Gladwell's fault it is mine and I will try not to let it bias my opinion.
While I am interested in psychology this felt too much like a Marketing based book to me and as I have little interest in the business world I kept losing interest. However, I love it when a book tells me something I didn't know or makes something clearer to me and there was for me one gem here. I have always been aware that we act differently in different roles e.g. to our parents, to our partner, to our children, to our friends, at work etc. I have also noticed, with amusement, that for all my deeply held spiritual beliefs I don't always act as good as I should do and just remind myself to try to do better next time. Gladwell quoted a psychological experiment that explains this. Following the Christian Parable of the Good Samaritan, they took a group of people training to be priests and gave them a speech to prepare. They then sent them off individually to another building to give the speech telling some of them to hurry up as they were a bit late already and the audience was waiting. On the route to the other building they had an actor rolling on the floor in agony. They found that the majority of the would be priests who had not been told they were late stopped to help the 'injured' man while the majority of priests who had been told they were a bit late, hurried past him! From this they concluded that a person's personality isn't a fixed thing but something that changes according to the circumstances .

Author of Candles On The Ganges

So this was a 3.5 read for me. I can see how this book would have been fascinating when first published back in 2002 but with how quickly advertisers can reach consumers and in the world of digital media makes it interesting to see how marketing and trends have evolved.

Inductive reasoning but still believable for the most part. Extreme fun to read.

i’d give it a solid 3.5

As with other Gladwell books (Blink and Outliers), the stories are engaging and the perspective is always fresh and insightful. However, the connection between the various anecdotes and the thesis is often flimsy. I think Tipping Point is the worst offender of the three books. I think he extrapolates too much from too little data and experimentation. But the book would deserve 5 stars if he could tone down his assertions a bit.

Gladwell is inexplicably cool and I go straight to his articles whenever they are in the New Yorker. I really appreciate how he can take assumptions and turn them on their head and cast new light on history that seems settled. That's why I keep reading his books, but I am often frustrated by his disregard for journalistic etiquette. I am not even sure that's the right way to put it, but I think the book is a little bit incoherent and repetitive and the points he is trying to make are not fully supported by his anecdotes.

However, I continue to be a loyal fan and will read any book he publishes and every article he writes for the New Yorker.

This book is really depressing to read at times. While the stories and explanations are congruent with the theme, the author does not offer many actual solutions or ideas how to reach, "the tipping point." Much like Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, this work exposes a problem set, but lacks many effective or proactive solutions.

Really good book. He talks about why Paul Revere's ride was so successful, why Hush Puppy shoes took off, why suicides and school shootings seem to go in groups, why word of mouth is so successful why you talk to the right people. Minor alternations can make a product or social situation tip (which means expands greatly) to be popular. The growth of Sesame Street and Blue Clues entertain and teach children. All sorts of interesting stuff. I want to read the rest of his books

This book grew out of an article Malcolm Gladwell was writing for the New Yorker. Frankly, it is better suited for a 5-7 page article rather than a 280 page book. The crux of the book is that the "stickiness factor" of epidemics (whatever the nature) begins with a tipping point. This tipping point arises because of three distinct sets of individuals: mavens, connectors and salespeople. He also examines the well-known S-curve which begins with innovators, then early adopters, followed by the early majority and finally, the late majority. He is overwhelmingly redundant in expressing his ideas, providing examples of epidemics throughout the text while comparing them to one another (children's television, Hushpuppy shoes, Paul Revere's ride, nicotine, and the list goes on and on...). The Conclusion, the eighth and final chapter, was pointless: if the reader did not understand Gladwell's point by now, he or she must have been as lost as Washington Redskins' new coach Jim Zorn when he commented his family was proud to wear maroon and black.

All that said, the book was not horrible. It was a well written first person narrative and the lessons of the emergence of epidemics are applicable to almost any career or lifestyle, as Gladwell demonstrated with his countless examples.

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“To be someone's best friend requires a minimum investment of time. More than that, though, it takes emotional energy. Caring about someone deeply is exhausting.”

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I bought this book for half price at Borders. I should have thought to myself: "Hey, there's probably a reason this book is on the half price table." But I didn't. I bought the book. The best way I can describe this one is to remind people of what it was like to take an essay exam for a liberal arts course in college. You have a full hour to fashion a coherent thesis out of the trivia you've learned over the past five months. So you come up with a topic sentence, build up a head of steam, and start sprinkling in facts to build up verisimilitude. You're not really convinced of the correctness or importance of your thesis; you just want that A grade. When I went to college, the technique was called BSing. Malcolm Gladwell is very good at it. The only problem is that after about 100 pages, you can tell he's BSing. Like many journalists who write books, he doesn't know what to do with all the extra space he needs to fill. If I were his editor, I'd tell him to pare down "The Tipping Point," "Blink," and another BS extravaganza into one tight book. I would probably give that book three stars. This one only gets two. Sorry, Malcolm.