The Tipping Point
Gladwell, M. (2001). The tipping point: How little things can make a big difference: Abacus.
This book is essentially an analysis of how/why certain trends take hold with public audiences and consumers, while others do not. The idea of The Tipping Point is based on Gladwell’s contention that any style, trend, or phenomenon that can be considered influential based on a large number of people accepting and/or adopting it reaches a juncture that signals the point at which the event can be considered a significant trend. Gladwell argues that there are identifiable factors and patterns that determine if and when the tipping point will occur. These determinants are comprised of three variables.
Law of the Few
This idea argues that the tipping point of a trend becoming influential requires the participation of three influential types of people: connectors, those who have ties to different areas and act as conduits between them and forming connections/relationships that might not otherwise occur; mavens, those with a strong compulsion to help other consumers make informed decisions; and Salesmen, those with a particular ability for persuading others’ buying decisions and behaviors.The Stickiness Factor
This refers to a particular quality of the trend that makes it “stick” in the public’s mind and influences their behavior. Interestingly, the stickiness can contradict prevailing conventional wisdom, such as the success of Sesame Street in 1960s, which went against the prevailing belief that children’s shows did not help children’s literacy. In this way, the stickiness characteristic often represents a dramatic divergence from an era’s conventional wisdom.The Power of Context
This refers to the idea that for a trend to reach a tipping point, the environment or historical movement must be right. Additionally, while large numbers of people need to embrace a trend for it to become influential, Gladwell argue that certain groups of people can be particularly helpful in achieving a tipping point.
I am including this book in my research due to the potential that some tipping point could occur with the Online Video Conversation (OVC). Various possibilities for the embracing of the concept could occur, such as a change in the perception of ease of video production. Many individuals with whom I have spoken, particularly the student in my classes who use the OVC in class, have some anxiety about using the technology, because it is new to them. Because most people’s familiarity with email is so much greater than that of video, the perception is that it is far easier to quickly write an email and send it of to communicate with someone than it is to produce a video. However, most laptops come with built-in cameras and many people now have external webcams. So, the camera is often immediately available and one can easily just look into the camera and speak a response, not so unlike one would if the conversant was in the room.
In this way, a tipping point might occur where the OVC is used by far more people and more frequently than textual communication forms, such as email, are used. Of course the determinants and variables that bring about the tipping point could vary greatly; however, the use of the OVC in the asynchronous classroom is an example of where such determinants could be seen. The instructor and students within one class using the technology, could be the connectors, mavens, and salesmen who then adopt this technology, reach out to others with whom they are networked, help them to understand the worth of the technology, and basically “sell” friends on it friends, in the workplace, and even in other classes. The stickiness factor could be the perception of the ease of video creation, thus contradicting conventional wisdom that emailing is the fastest and easiest method of communication and that video is a very complex technology to use. Of course, the power of context would have to be present and the ideal environment could be the population of a particular class.
Clearly, it is easier to identify the factors of a given tipping point once it has already occurred. Predicting the likelihood that a certain trend will have a tipping point and what that point will be is more difficult to pinpoint. However, looking at certain trends, it is possible to look at the surrounding environment, the individuals involved, and the factors that might emerge as “stickiness” attributes. In this way, while not foolproof, one might gain an understanding of what trends are more likely to having a tipping point than others.