The Tipping Point

- Aleksi

Book Read By Edward

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

The book is a mixture of tales, psychology, economics, marketing, epidemiology and more. The principle focus of The Tipping Point is how small changes, can bring about large effects. Instances such as marketing of Hush Puppies shoes, the broken windows theory, Paul Reveres Midnight ride, Word of mouth, Mass hysteria and more. 

Gladwell actually internments the spirit of human acquaintances and the human need to feel part of something. The book is really intended for anyone interested in looking at what moves people and how a small event can result in large response. From my perspective, the argument presented in the book proceeds with a very reasonably and was sufficiently developed and supported by the factual instances. 

 The fundamental argument presented in the books is: According to Gladwell, the tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold and subsequently spreads with incredible speed through society. Many social trends and phenomena follow the same elementary outline as epidemics; that they follow the same identical pattern because they are caused and sustained in much the same way; that the difference between trends that get past the "tipping point" and those that do not may often be one or more very small factors; and that if one wants to create any sort of social trend (whether that be buying a product or committing fewer crimes), it is important to attend to such very small factors.

Through his study, Gladwell found that epidemics have three characteristics in common. First, the thing that spreads the epidemic is contagious. In the case of a product or an idea, Gladwell refers to its sticky quality or ability to lodge in the cultural mindset. Second, small changes in the environment result in large effects on the spread of the epidemic. Third, at some identifiable point the trend tips and causes a dramatic change - an epidemic. Factors that lead to this tipping include key people or promoters and the contexts in which they operate, among other things.

In Gladwell's terminology, stickiness is a characteristic of ideas that are memorable, catchy, and inescapably applicable to a particular situation. In technology education there is no sticky phrase. But from my perspective, I think Gladwell is an insightful observer whose understandings here are original, thought-provoking, and even worthwhile.  

Edward

blink book essay javier

Thin Slicing is a term used by psychologist and philosophers, but what does it mean? According to Malcolm Gladwell, “It’s the tendency that we have as human beings to reach very rapid, very profound and sophisticated conclusions based on very thin slices of experiences.” Blink is a book by Malcolm Gladwell explaining this theory of thin-slicing. In the book Gladwell tells us many different stories that have to do with thin-slicing. The book has examples of successful thin-slicing, examples showing how it works and what it accomplishes. It also has stories teaching us, the reader of thin-slicing and how it isn’t all that great and completely accurate as well. Some stories that can teach us lessons, which we can learn from not to make the same mistakes over and over. This book is about the unconscious mind and how we don’t know it but it affects us at every moment whether we notice or not. How the unconscious mind picks up patterns from small amount of information or experiences and we make snap judgments based on those patterns. Which most of the time we don’t notice, unless of course you have trained your mind to recognize these patterns, which there’s an example of in the book. All this thin-slicing has its pros and cons I believe Gladwell’s theory is correct; all his examples are backed up by his theory of thin-slicing. He gives evidence to how it works both positively and negatively. The theory of thin-slicing is that we have the ability as human beings to instantly identify specific patterns from within small amounts of experience or information, and we make instant or snap judgments based upon those patterns. What does this mean; it means that our unconscious holds on to information from previous events. From that information our unconscious recognizes certain patterns from the past and catches similarities in current experiences or events and reacts. This reaction although it may sound a bit complicated happens in mere seconds.