The Tipping Point

The Tipping Point

The author said that yawning is a surprisingly powerful act. Just by reading the word “yawning”, you will probably yawn within the next few minutes. Even as the author wrote it, he had already yawned twice. And I had indeed yawned.

He then mentioned that if you had yawned in the public place, chances are if anybody saw you yawn will be yawning too. Yawning is incredible contagious.

1. contagiousness
2. the fact that little causes can have big effects
3. that change happens not gradually but at one dramatic moment

The third trait - the idea that epidemics can rise or fall in one dramatic moment – is the most important. It makes sense of the first two and permits the greatest insight into why modern change happens the way it does. This dramatic moment in an epidemic when everything can change all at once is the Tipping Point.

3 rules :
1. The Law of the Few

6 degrees of separation – doesn’t mean that everyone is linked to everyone else in just six steps. It means that a very small number of people are linked to everyone else in a few steps, and the rest of us are linked to the world through those special few.

Proximity overpowered similarity - We’re friends with the people we do things with, as much as we are with the people we resemble. We don’t seek out friends, in other words. We associate with the people who occupy the same small, physical spaces that we do.

There are a few types of people :
* Connector – people with a special gift for brining the world together.
* Data bankers – people who has wisdom, is curious in anything and everything.
* Salesmen – skills to persuade us when we are unconvinced of what we are hearing.

Charismatic people can infect the other people in the room with his or her emotions.
Smiling is contagious even though it is subtle.

2. The Stickiness Factor
Examples of Stickiness Factor are TV shows Sesame Street and Blue’s Clues as well as a game show The Golden box.

I remember watching Blue’s Clues in my University days. And I have to say Blue’s Clues has a bounding effect on you. It tempts you to follow Blue, the dog, around to search for something for e.g. his favourite food. And at the end of the show, we will always be presented with 3 clues to figure out the riddle. It is a simple story line but it engages the child to follow and think and sometimes answer the guy asking the question.

Constant repetition which is boring to adult is not boring to children because every time these preschoolers watch the episode, they are experiencing it in a completely different way. Even Sesame Street uses the repetition method. Thus in order to be capable of sparking epidemics, ideas have to be memorable and move us to action.

The lesson of stickiness is that there is a simple way to package information that under the right circumstances can make it irresistible.

3. The Power of Context

The conditions and circumstances of the times and places in which they occur are important factors too. In fact situations can affect a person. An experiment was done to stimulate a mock prison and figure out why prisons are such a nasty place. And the study found out that the volunteers who acted as guards and who were originally mild and pacifistic ended up as cruel and hard bitten disciplinarians. And a “prisoner” really felt he lost his identity and acknowledged that he is prisoner XXX. These are specific situations so overwhelming that the person lost conscience of their true self.

After reading finish this book, actually I’m not very clear because Tipping point seems to be trying to create an impact. But to create this impact, you need to have the right messenger (The Law of the Few), the right idea (Stickiness Factor) and the right situation (Power of Context). In fact typing this review, I’m not sure if I even understand the book accurately.

But one of the case studies included in the book shudder me. On the South Pacific islands of Micronesia, the suicidal rate suddenly increased steeply and dramatically. And the scariest part is some of these children had no intention of dying. They were experimenting what is the sensation of hanging. I remember reading an article too on a young teenage that was found to have hung himself to death. The parents had no idea why he did that and he had been a good kid. Apparently the kids he was mixing with were having such mini-game. To try to hang oneself and see what is the sensation when your breadth got cut off. And though the parents found lots of marks, he had always said he hurt himself. Only after his death did they realise those were injuries he inflicted while hanging himself. These are children that have experimented things that cannot be experimented – Death. And the media speculation, the wide coverage adds on to the curiosity of these young children caused the steep increase of the suicidal rates.

In short, social change is volatile and inexplicable. But there is also hope in life. With the slightest push in the right place at the right time, the world can be tipped suddenly…