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The Tipping Point

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Three Rules of The Tipping Point

1. The Law of the Few

2. The Stickiness Factor

3. The Power of Context

These provide a direction for how to go about reaching a tipping point.

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The Law of the Few

ConnectorsPeople with a special gift of bringing the world together – SOCIAL GLUE – SPREAD MESSAGE

MavensThey accumulate knowledge and have the social skills to start word-of-mouth epidemics – DATA BANKS – PROVIDE THE MESSAGE

SalesmenThey persuade us

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The Law of the Few Connectors

Paul Revere

Word of mouth is still the most important form of human communication (p. 32).

Best bar / restaurant in town

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The Stickiness Factor

Your change models – the theme is the stickiness factor - Remember what your learned

Sesame Street vs. Blues Clues

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The Power of Context

Epidemics are sensitive to the conditions and circumstances of the times and places in which they occur – the context, p. 139

Laser disk, CD and DVD Ethanol or fuel cells or ? Video/telephones

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The Power of Context“Character is more like a bundle of habits

and tendencies and interests, loosely bound together and dependent, at certain times, on circumstance and context,” p. 163.

“The convictions of your heart and the actual contents of your thoughts are less important, in the end, in guiding your actions than the immediate context of your behavior,” p. 165.

True in extreme situations?True in work situations?

True in personal situations?

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The Rules of The Tipping Point Making an idea or attitude or product tip

can be done through the influence of special kinds of people. That’s the Law of the Few.

It can be done by changing the content of communication, by making a message so memorable that it sticks in someone’s mind and compels them to action. That is the Stickiness Factor.

But we need to remember that small changes in context can be just as important in tipping epidemics. Ch. 4

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Change Agents

Rosa Parks Martin Luther King Jr.

Connectors Mavens Salesmen

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Changes Innovators

adventurous Early adopters

opinion leaders Early majority

big companies Late majority

these 2: deliberate & skeptical mass

Laggards

stragglers

Cheese Sniff Scurry Haw Hem

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Connectors, Mavens, & Salesmen

They are the translators They take ideas from innovators

and get them understood and accepted by the masses

To make an idea contagious, they level it, dropping extra details and exaggerating other details to give more meaning to the message

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Contagiousness vs. Stickiness

Contagiousness is in larger part a function of the messenger

Stickiness is primarily a property of the message, p. 234

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Smoking vs. Suicide

Young people will experiment.

But you can’t experiment with suicide – once is all it takes.

Paying attention to the tipping points of the addiction process can lead to a less sticky form of smoking (nicotine threshold, depression, lure of who smokes).

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Lessons of the Tipping Point

1. Starting epidemics requires concentrating resources in a few key areas.

Concentrate resources on connectors, mavens, and salesmen (Law of the Few) p. 255-256.

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Lessons of the Tipping Point

2. We are influenced by our surroundings, our immediate context, and the personalities of those around us p. 258-259.

With the slightest push in just the right place, the world can be tipped p. 259.