The Tipping Point is a book by Malcolm Gladwell. It’s about the factors that come into play in social epidemics, and how “messages” expand their reach (or don’t).

Here are the notes I took while reading the book. They are not in any particular order or connected in any particular way. This isn’t supposed to be a summary, review or essay. It may even have some key information or examples missing. They are just thoughts and direct quotes that caught my attention and I felt like marking or writing down to try to retain them in my memory. 

Ideas, products, messages and behaviours spread just like viruses do. They are epidemics. Contagious behaviours, they are not easily induced and are usually a product of “natural” causes. They all start little and happen in a hurry, as opposed of slow and steady.

Tipping points are moments where situations hit critical mass. These are moments of great sensitivity. Changes made at these moments can have enormous consequences (those same changes may not have the same consequences if done at other times).

We are all gradualists at hearts, but sudden changes are more than a possibility.

The three rules of epidemics

There’s more than one way to tip an epidemic. Epidemics are a function of the people that transmit them, the agent itself and the context.

• People. Pareto principle: 80/20 -> A tiny percentage of people do the majority of the work. But they are not like everyone else. They are, in some way or another, exceptional.
• Agent. Stickiness: making and impact with the message. Small changes in structure or presentation can make a message more memorable.
• Context. Humans are a lot more sensitive to their environment that what it seems.

The power of the few

Word of mouth is still one of the most powerful and important ways humans communicate. Even at this day and age.

But that alone isn’t enough. Not even the content is enough. Social epidemics are heavily dependant of people with influence and social gifts.

The connectors

“Six degrees” of separations doesn’t mean that everyone is connected to everyone. It means that there are a few people that are heavily connected and we can connect with the rest of the world through this special few.

Connectors know a lot of people. They master the weak tie. Casual and friendly connections with acquaintances.

Their importances is also on the kind of people they know. They manage to be part of many different worlds and sub-cultures; and they are able to bring all their worlds together.

They wield the strength and power of the weak ties, since acquaintances are the ones that connect you with worlds outside of your own.

Word-of-mouth epidemics are the work of connectors.

You don’t find connectors… they find you.

The mavens

They are information specialists. They aren’t passive collectors of information. They want to tell you all they know. They are socially motivated.

Mavens have the knowledge and social skills to start a word of mouth epidemics. What sets them apart isn’t what they know, it’s how they pass it along. They want to just help. Connectors have more reach, but mavens are more effective.

Mavens are not persuaders. Mavens trade information.

Salesmen

They have the skills to persuade the unconvinced. They harness the power of positivity on their messages. They make little things matter as much as the big things. Verbal and non-verbal cues are equally important, and persuasion works in subtle ways.

They are “emotional senders” (they can transmit a state of mind).

The stickiness factor

When talking about epidemics, reach is very important; but if  it doesn’t stick, then the effort/message quickly dies. The message not only has to be memorable enough to provoke an action.

Interactive messages are more “sticky”.

The information age has created a stickiness problem. Clutter has made it very difficult for any message to stick.

If you pay careful attention to the structure and format of the message, you could dramatically enhance its stickiness.

The more engaged (intellectually or physically) in something, the more memorable and meaningful it becomes.

Repetition helps stickiness. Repetition with small variants keep you more engaged if it is complex enough  to allow deeper comprehension with repeated exposure.

The message or its quality is not actually central to its stickiness. Sometimes, really small changes to the presentation of the message make all the difference.

The power of context

Epidemics are sensitive to the conditions and circumstances of the times and places in which they occur.

The Broken Windows Theory: if a window is broken and left un-repaired, people will asume no one cares and no one is in charge. Soon, more windows will be broken and the sentiment will spread.

The message sometimes doesn’t come from a person, but from the environment.

Behaviour is a function of social context.

There are specific situations so powerful that they can overwhelm our most inherent predispositions.

Traits are heavily influenced by context and situations.

Character isn’t a stable, easily identifiable set of traits. It is more like a bundle of habits and tendencies, loosely bound together and dependant con certain times, circumstances and context. However, human minds tend to over-simplify this and try to conceive a notion of continuity when someone shows different traits and behaviours in different circumstances. We have trouble accepting that someone can be different than the general notion that we have.

The reason most of us seem to have a consistent character is that most of us are really good at controlling our environment.

When we try to make an idea, attitude or product tip, we are trying to change our audience in one small yet critical way.

When people make decisions or consider something in groups or being part of one, they may be different that what they would have decided on their own.

It’s easier to remember something when it becomes an experience.

Small, close-knitted groups have the power of magnifying the epidemic potential of a message or an idea.

The rule of 150: the biggest “a small group” can be in order to remain “close”.

Peer pressure is much more powerful that the concept of a boss.

Transactive memory: not all information or ideas are stored in our heads. Some are stored in outside objects or people and we just memorize where and how to retrieve them.

Diffusion model:

• Innovators
• Early adopters (usually the tipping point)
• Early Majority (usually the peak)
• Late Majority (also usually the peak)
• Laggards (the fall in growth)

Innovators and early adopters are visionaries, want a revolution by change, something that sets them apart. They take risks. They are usually small companies.

Early majorities are bigger. They have to worry about how those changes fit in their complex structure.

The jump between innovators/early adopters to the majorities is very difficult because of risk avertion.

Connectors, mavens and salesmen are the ones that facilitate that jump. They slightly tweak the idea/message/product so it becomes interesting to the majorities.

Contagiousness is an attribute of the messenger; while stickiness belongs to the message.

Experimentation and hard-core adoption are different problems. So, to thwart epidemics, maybe it’s better to focus on stickiness instead of the connectors/mavens/salesmen.

Starting epidemics requires to focus efforts in a few key areas.

“Band-aid solutions” should not be dismissed. They solve a vast array of problems with minimum costs and efforts; and sometimes, that is all it’s needed.

Tipping points show us:

1. We have to rethink the way we view the world. Not everything is as straight forward as we think.
2. The world doesn’t usually work as our intuition may suggest, so we have to challenge our intuitions.
3. We are powerfully influenced by our surroundings.

The fax effect: as opposed to supply-and-demand, the value is on the abundance of a certain resource. The more there is of something, the more valuable it becomes.

Immunity: when a form of communication loses its value which once was big, because of how often you are exposed to it.

The cure for immunity is going back to the connectors, mavens and salesmen. They are distinguished not by worldly status and achievement (traditional influence of power and money) but by the particular standing they have among their friends. People look up to them, not out of envy, but out of love, which is why they can break through the rising tide of isolation and immunity.