The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

Book Review by Jane
It is easy to lose the main point in this non-fiction book at times when getting caught up in the interesting details, but regardless of where you are, the title brings you back to the main point. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference explains how little changes can cause epidemics. Different types of people tend to play a strong role in how things happen. For instance, the book discusses these key people in terms of Mavens, Connectors, and Salespeople. The author describes instances where people used the talents of these people to get their points to take off. One woman went into hair salons to get her message about health out. Some of these people can start fashions, which originate from a small group of people. Mavens would know everything there is about a product, and would want to get others to use it. The Connectors simply know a great deal of people. There is a test for Connectors in the beginning of the book, on which I did not score very well, that has the reader count the number of surnames that belong to acquaintances of his or her own.

The arguments made by the author are compelling. He described the crime rate dropping in the New York subway system by simple changes in the environment. Crime “tipped” after the subways were cleaned up of graffiti and more police checked to ensure people were paying their fares. Mr. Gladwell uses many different examples to show his observations, and that is what I meant by getting lost in the details. The examples are often of things I already knew, only the author showed the subject in a different light, such as the crime question. Children’s television was discussed—suicide, teen smoking, Paul Revere, on and on. The one subject the Mr. Gladwell could not sell to me was the smoking question. I am an ex-smoker, and his explanations of the reasons teens smoke made perfect sense. I could not buy his solution to the problem. You will have to read the book to find out his solution. However, the book did open my mind to think about things mentioned.

Jane.