I promised to write about the
Tipping Point by
Malcolm Gladwell because I love it and I want it in my blog for easy review if I need it later on. The book suggests how little things make a big difference to create change – and it’s applicable to everything. The tipping point is the level at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable, when ideas, products and messages, behaviors spread like viruses do. The tipping point starts epidemics of significant proportions that it’s not easy to go against the tide. Remember EDSA? The tipping point was Ninoy Aquino’s death although it took another two years for Marcos downfall. Remember Jiho’s popularity? The tipping point is We Got Married although very few people knew about it and only saw him on BOF. It was his personality in that WGM series that started the wildfire. He was irresistible, so his shows followed one after the other.
The book enumerates the rules of epidemics and they are:
1.
The Law of the Few. Only a few people initiate the change. The Pareto Principle Says that only 20% of the whole who do 80% of the work. These 20% probably have particular and rare set of social gifts that moves the universe to change. How many people does it take to light a stage? How many people would it take to kill Michael Jackson? Ok that’s a bad analogy but I think you get my drift. Gladwell calls this 20% the:
a.
Connectors – people who have the gift of bringing people together, have the ordinary talent of making numerous friends and acquaintances. My niece Kela falls in this category. She has 100 bffs in her high school alone. I don’t know how she can remember all their names at all ;P
b.
Mavens – information specialists we rely on to provide us with new information or a piece of their accumulated knowledge about everything under the sun. They are the know-it-alls although all they really want to do is help people so they volunteer information which they think people will find helpful even if people don’t ask. Oprah would be a maven simply because she shares everything she thinks people need to know in her show.
c.
Salesman – persuaders who have the ability to sell you anything under the sun and convince you that you can’t live life without it. They are charismatic people with great negotiation skills. Like Hyun Joong who can say, this is not the Philippines and can actually make you believe its true. (I know I talk about him far too much – hahaha)
2.
The Stickiness Factor – The specific content of a message that renders its impact memorable and effective to retention. Swine flu. Though it was called an epidemic here for sometime, it didn’t stick. Why? Because very few people died of it. And eventually, people stopped washing their hands. This is an important factor in product branding. People attract to things they easily remember – things that stick. The Bulilit Sanay sa maliit Commercial for example. Or Korean pop song Nobody. They stick.
3.
The Power of Context – Human behavior is sensitive to and strongly influenced by its environment. Epidemics are sensitive to the conditional circumstances of the times / places in which they occur. We wanted a second floor in our home because it is falling apart. It’s been falling apart for years but we didn’t seem to mind. After Baguio Frank, there is now a strong need to fix the house. We suddenly looked for ways to find a solution desperately. Frank was a tipping point. The second floor is not only a house improvement now, it is a need in case of another flood calamity. It has now become a future safety harness.
The book is a must read. Fate is a question of circumstances and events coming together to make change happen. I can’t say that life had been pre-determined by God to happen the way it does. Maybe everything is planned but no one can tell for sure. But changes occur because of agents of change come together to create a holocaust of movements making it the tipping point. And this coming together is called the point that tips the scale. It maybe planned by some super power but then again, maybe everything just happens by accident. I like not knowing this. I like an unpredictable life.
