Why the “Tipping Point” is Pointless and Wrong
We’ve all heard about the best selling Tipping Point and it’s seemingly omnipresent Malcolm Gadwell. Something about it never sat right with me. Turns out that I was not alone and some good folks at Harvard Business review have taken it apart.
In his best seller The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell argues that “social epidemics” are driven in large part by the actions of a tiny minority of special individuals. The idea seems intuitively right—we think we see it happening all the time. Nevertheless, this isn’t actually how ideas spread. It’s better to focus on getting enough plain, ordinary people to sign on.
h/t: Marginal Revolution
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February 15th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
I see evidence that backs up Gladwell’s thesis all the time. For example, once a few tastemaking blogs, including Independent Sources, began began following the emerging “camel toe” phenomenon, we reached the “tipping point” when camel toe suddenly became hip and trendy. And I think that a couple of IS posts regarding “GILFs” could propel that topic into mainstream discourse. Try it and see.
February 15th, 2007 at 10:36 pm
I hate to ask but what is a GILF