Book Review: The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

Hush puppies, a footwear brand that was on the brink of obscurity, suddenly started becoming trendy again in the streets of Manhattan. New York, a city known for criminal gangs roaming and causing havoc with impunity suddenly saw crime incidences plummet. Sesame Street, a show that pioneered the genre of children’s edutainment, spread like wildfire across the world. All the above incidences looked like epidemics, because they actually were.

Malcolm Gladwell, the author of the widely popular book The Outliers, wrote The Tipping Point-How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference way before he discovered what makes Outliers in our society stand out. In his characteristic easy going manner he breaks down complex research data into a way that ordinary readers like me can understand and enjoy. He convincingly explains what makes ideas and products spread like viruses by exploring 3 rules which turn ideas into epidemics:

i) The Law of the Few: This law describes how a select group of people with certain unique characteristics are able to make ideas spread like Australian bush-fires. Paul Revere was a man who was able to spread the news of America’s invasion from Britain and almost single-handedly change the course of the war which led to America’s independence. He possessed characteristics which few people had. Amongst us there exist such people; they are described in the book as Mavens, Connectors and Salesmen.

ii) The Stickiness Factor: To infect people with an idea, it has to stick long after it’s introduced to them. Sesame Street was able to stick to its target audience and was widely popular long after it was introduced to the American public in the summer of 1969. An even more “stickier” show named Blues Clues launched much later with a concept that seemed foolish to adults captivated the pre-school children it targeted. The Tipping Point illustrates how the producers of those shows discovered the factors that made them stick.

iii) The Power of Context:  New York City in the 1980s was a city with one of the worst crime epidemics in the world. By 1996 crime rates had dropped by more than two thirds of what it was in 1990, when it was at an all time high. Gladwell explores seemingly unrelated events which contributed to drastic drop in crime because they changed the context of where the crime was happening.

If you are curious of how ideas, products and events become widely popular or if you are wondering how to popularize a product and turn it into an epidemic, The Tipping Point is the book for you. Easy to read and laden with examples from different contexts, it’s easy to see why it became a New York Times bestseller and maintained its “stickiness factor” in that list for years.

The Rivers of Babylon: Part 3

They were the cream of the crop. Handsome, intelligent, well informed, well built and of royal blood, they were as close to perfection as humanly possible. For this reason they were chosen to be trained to serve in the highest capacity in the king’s court, as Advisors to the king. Their training was to include familiarizing themselves with the rituals of the Magi, learning the literature of the Chaldeans and being indoctrinated into the Babylonian religion. Being Israelites, they adamantly refused to conform themselves to what they believed were methods to corrupt them and get rid of their belief in God and replacing His worship of him with that of the Babylonian Gods. They even couldn’t eat royal food and wine from the king’s table.

 Despite refusing to bow down to customs alien to them, the training program continued. The king and his courtiers allowed them to keep their customs and worship their God because he found them to be 10 times better than the Magi in the city, despite not observing the strict training regimen. One matter that he could not compromise was they had to keep their Babylonian names; they couldn’t identify themselves as Hebrews anymore. The names Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Hazariah were replaced by Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.

The book of Daniel chronicles how they (especially Belteshazzar) rose in prominence through the reign of 3 kings despite going through all what the other Israelites went through. While fellow Israelites saw the walls of Babylon as prisons obstructing them from going back to their homeland, the 4 saw an opportunity to do exploits for their God and make Him known among their invaders, whose trust was in other worthless gods.

To put this ancient story into our current context, we can see how people who face similar circumstances react differently. Some, as eagles, choose to rise above the storm while others (who are the majority) crouch together in fear waiting for better days, or a return to more familiar territory. Like in the ancient Babylonian days, there are those who are still shocked by the changing and uncertain political landscape in Kenya and want to go back to when things were more favorable for them, while there are visionaries who take the opportunities that lie before them and rise to prominence in the nation and beyond. Vision doesn’t dwell on the past, but uses the present to chart its way to make the future bright.

 How do we avoid the pitfalls of crying by the rivers in times of uncertainty instead of being fruitful and occupying the land we live in? The 4 wise men of ancient Babylon disclosed the secret to us, knowing the power of the great God and believing that His plans for us are always good, despite the situations we are in. How did they have this assurance? They constantly communed with God. Vision comes from revelation; revelation comes from fellowship with Him.