Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference, by Malcolm Gladwell

Last week I picked up a copy of 'Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference', by Malcolm Gladwell, mainly because I recalled his book, Blink : The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, and appreciated it for what it was - an interesting book. I expected the same from this book, and was not to be disappointed. Many of the things discussed in the book made sense to me on an intuitive level, but the information that the author put in the book to support the premise of the book made for compelling points - no argument.

From Sesame Street to the change in crime of New York City in the 1980s, Gladwell sketches an interesting picture that makes an easy framework for each reader to paint. I don't often compliment an author like this - the book is exceptionally well written, probably the best written non-fiction I have read in the last 12 months. I would say 'year', but it's early January.

Being Sticky

I'm not a marketing person; I've been told that and I tend to agree with it. But I do know what appeals to me, and why - what I didn't know was the amount of work that went into children's television - which the author delves into. To educate, educational television has to be 'sticky' for children - something which makes sense to me, but which I had never thought of. It's a brilliant way to open discussion on a book which would otherwise be a simple marketing textbook - which it isn't. I have no doubt that marketers will and have found this book useful, but the applications transcend that - and the author makes that known right off the bat with examples such as crime, sexually transmitted disease (the ultimate in sticky), and children's education.

One of the more interesting things I found, especially in the context of crime where I am right now, is the Broken Windows concept. It makes sense to me on an intuitive level that fixing a broken window lends to a better neighborhood, but I hadn't realized that it could be applied to things of a larger scope. For example, here in Trinidad and Tobago, littering and even urinating in public aren't dealt with as crimes - and perhaps because of that, we have the crime we have today with murders and kidnappings. It's an interesting methodology, described well in the book, which worked in New York in the 1980s.¹ This and other demonstrations of how small changes resulted in big changes are seeded through the book in an easy to follow writing style that a high school student would have no problem following.

Engineering applications for these theories abound, with some thought. Consider Free Software and Open Source - the concepts didn't really get out there until years after the core concepts were well in place. Linux became a true success when VA Linux started going downhill, but it probably had more to do with investors moving from the Dot-Com boom (bomb) to needing to spend their money on something else in technology. When a certain interest was demonstrated throughout the market, IBM and many others showed up to support Linux. When SCO started the lawsuit, they actually strengthened the private and corporate backing of Linux, and by extension Open Source and Free Software. This isn't in the book, and it may be faulty, but it shows how small changes over time make a difference. Linus Torvalds didn't write the Linux kernel to change the world market on operating systems.

One of the things I find most intriguing about the book is that it dances around the theory of Fuzzy Logic, where small changes are possible. Gradients of truth and falsehood. In an intricate system, various factors are at play and a small change in the system can affect how the entire system operates - from the computer you are reading this on, to the eco-systems in your area of the world, to economic systems in play as the world adjusts to globalization. Small changes. Reminds me of the movie, 'Contact'. Small moves.

Conclusion

This book is worth it. Read it - buy it (hopefully here!), borrow it, however you do it - this book is important no matter what you do for a living. It rings of Musashi, Lotfi Zadeh, Deming and Lorenz while avoiding the technical 'stuff' and just letting the reader read.

Highly recommended.

¹As I write this, the television is reporting a missing person; Rudolph Singh. Perhaps another victim of crime.