The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, 2002

The three principles that define an epidemic: one, contagiousness; two, the fact that little causes can have big effects; and three, that change happens not gradually but at one dramatic moment. The name given to that one dramatic moment in an epidemic when everything can change all at once is the Tipping Point. The Tipping Point is the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point, the mystery of word of mouth.

Three Rules of Tipping Point

The three rules of the Tipping Point – the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context – offer a way of making sense of epidemics. They provide us with direction for how to go about reaching a Tipping Point.

 Law of the Few

 

The Law of the Few says that one critical factor in epidemics is the nature of the messenger. The Law of the Few says that Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen are responsible for starting word-of-mouth epidemics, which means that if you are interested in starting a word-of-mouth epidemic, your resources ought to be solely concentrated on those three groups.

 

Stickiness Factor

 

This idea of the importance of stickiness in tipping has enormous implications for the way we regard social epidemics. We tend to spend a lot of time thinking about how to make messages more contagious – how to reach as many people as possible with our products or ideas. But the hard part of communication is often figuring out to make sure a message doesn’t go in one ear and out the other. Stickiness means that a message makes an impact.

 

The Stickiness Factor says that there are specific ways of making a contagious message memorable; there are relatively simple changes in the presentation and structuring of information that can make a big difference in how much of an impact it makes.

 

Power of Context

 

The Power of Context is based on the premise that an epidemic can be tipped by tinkering with the smallest details of the immediate environment. Specific and relatively small elements in the environment can serve as Tipping Points. Environmental Tipping Points are things that we can change. Little things can make as much of a difference as big things.

 

Emotion is contagious. In a way, this is perfectly intuitive. We normally think of the expressions of our face as the reflections of an inner state. I feel happy, so I smile. I feel sad, so I frown. Emotion goes inside-out. Emotional contagion, though, suggests that the opposite is also true. If I can make you smile, I can make you happy. If I can make you frown, I can make you sad. Emotion, in this sense, goes outside-in.

 

If we think of emotion this way – as outside-in, not inside-out – it is possible to understand how some people can have an enormous amount of influence over others. Some of us, after all, are very good at expressing emotions and feelings, which means that we are far more emotionally contagious than the rest of us.

 

Nonverbal cues are as or more important than verbal clues. The subtle circumstances surrounding how we say things may matter more than what we say. Some physical movements and observations can have a profound effect on how we feel and think. Persuasion often works in ways that we do not appreciate. It’s not that smiles and nods are subliminal messages. They are straightforward and on the surface. It’s just that they are incredibly subtle.

Economic Tipping Point

Short History of Financial Euphoria by John Kenneth Galbraith, Harvard, 1990