Book Review: The Tipping Point -- Malcolm Gladwell

I enjoyed Malcolm Gladwell's bestseller Blink so much, I had to read his first attempt, The Tipping Point. And I am glad that I did. Thought-provoking doesn't nearly describe the intense branching of your thought patterns when grasping, or attempting to grasp, the ideas presented by Gladwell in this book. And, just as he did in Blink, Gladwell lets you in on old and new studies and analyses that will ensure that you see the world differently at book's end.

A "tipping point" is that occurrence when some type of movement -- social, military, economic, popular -- becomes a runaway success instead of descending back into relative obscurity. Every fad, great idea, or popular movement began small, built up steam, caught on, and exploded into an accepted phenomenon. Gladwell's analyzes what a tipping is, how a movement reaches it, and who and what helps tip the movement. Using such examples as the rebirth of the Hush Puppy shoe fad (yes, rebirth -- Hush Puppies were popular twice), the success of novel television programs (for their time) like Sesame Street and Blues Clues, and the spread of syphilis in Baltimore, Gladwell gives us a glimpse of how our society works, how individuals within a social framework can have a huge impact.

Gladwell also shows us how tipping points can be manufactured as well as occur naturally or "by accident". He highlights advertising campaigns and scientific/psychological studies used to steer audiences toward and past the tipping point. He even outlines how some movements fail that look like a sure winner.

As I've stated: The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference is a thought-provoking work that challenges the way you think about how movements and epidemics work, how we think as individuals as well as a society, and how important certain individuals and cliques can be to the dissemination of an idea. But it did leave me with one nagging question and possibly the subject of a later essay from Malcolm Gladwell: Where was the tipping point for his success as a writer?