Design your Thinking

 

 

The Tipping point - How little things can make a big difference.

-by Malcom Gladwell

 

A puzzle. Imagine a very large piece of a paper. Fold the paper once and now fold the folded paper again and then again and then again until you’ve folded the original paper fifty times. How tall would be the final stack? As thick as a phone book? Or would the pile be as tall as a refrigerator? The height of the stack would be as high as the distance to the Sun and back. This is how Geometric progression works. Epidemics are another examples of G.P. Big changes follow from small events and at some moments these changes happen rapidly. The name given to that one dramatic moment in an epidemic when everything can change all at once is the “Tipping point”.

An idea spreads like fire once it reaches the tipping point. But in order to spread like fire, an idea first has to reach what Gladwell calls the tipping point.

The book is about the reasons why and how there is an emergence of some fashion trends, Memes going viral, teen smoking spurt in some localities, the phenomenon of word of mouth. Ideas, products, messages and behaviors spread just like virus do. "The Tipping Point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire."

The three agents of such changes are

1.      The law of the few

2.      The stickiness factor

3.      The power of context.

 

1.      The Law of few: Why is it that some ideas and trends and messages “tip” and some don’t? 

The answer is that the success of any kind of social epidemic is heavily dependent on the involvement of people with particular and rare set of social gifts. This is the Law of few.

Malcom identifies three types of people who seem to help epidemics grow quickly.

They are Connectors, The Mavens and the Salespeople. These three are responsible for starting word-of-mouth epidemics 

 

1.    Connectors are those people who seem to know everyone. Everyone knows someone like these. They have more social connections than most people and are great at making friends.

2.  Mavens are the people that seem to know everything and always want to help. They are the information brokers, sharing and trading what they know.

3.      Salespeople make you end up with that tie that you never wear. All those computer gadgets you never use. These people know how to sell and they love what they do. They let their actions do the talking and they utilize the power of body language.

 

The three laws:

 

1.      The law of few:

The law of the few is explained by a concept referred to as six degrees of separation. This means that five to six people are linked to everyone else in a few steps and everyone else is connected to the world through that small group of people.  An experiment was done in which 160 people were mailed a packet. In that packet was a name of a stockbroker whom none of these 160 recipients knew. Each person was instructed to write her/his name on the packet and send it to any person who she or he thought would get closer to the stock broker. Interestingly the average mediators found were six. That’s the concept of six degree of separation. A very small number of people are linked to everyone else in a few steps, and the rest of us are linked to the world through those special few.

Dunbar's number: of 150 puts a point why we can only maintain 150 relationships at a time. Also a point that there are on an average 12 names we can think of whose death would leave us truly devastated. If the number is more means we are not truly close to all the 12. 

 

2.      The stickiness factor:

Even ordinary story based movies often keep us well engrossed whereas some interesting story based movies fail to entertain us. This is because of the stickiness factor or lack of it. There is a simple way to package information that under the right circumstances can make it irresistible. All you have to do is find it. The song that sticks in your head or the thing a person has said that doesn’t leave your mind. It’s not always the major changes in how we present things that matter, but the small ones. Minor changes can produce massive results. What makes something sticky is different for everything and will always be a mystery.

So the next time I want my marketing campaign to go viral, I need to study the Stickiness factor. The messages must have a certain character which causes them to remain active in the recipients' minds. Moreover, they must be deemed worthy of being passed on.

 

3.      The Power of context:

Our environment affects our perception which in turn affects our actions. If there are broken windows in a neighborhood, there will be a higher violent crime rate. People will walk by and conclude that no one is in charge. Soon more windows will be broken and the sense of anarchy and carelessness will spread from the building to the whole street. According to the power of context, if you want the crime rate to go down, then fix the windows instead of arresting people for murder. 

Gladwell has point that if we want to spread a message, the audience has to be ready for the message (the context), the message has to be worth spreading (stickiness), and the message must be given to the right people (the few).

 

Disclaimer:

 The summary written by me is just an attempt to preserve the points that left an impact. .

In this article I have mixed my experiences, observations, foresights and my perceptions.

 

Vinay Wagh