I read Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference during a vacation to the family homestead last week. All ya'll probably read it years ago, but I'm slow like that. Even when the Mickster strongly recommends something, it takes me two years to follow up.
I found the book positively mindblowing (my mind is easily blown, so don't get pissy with me if you thought it was simplistic and obvious). I've got no idea if everything in it was correct; I'm way too lazy and easily distracted to actually try and track down the references, and much of the book was anecdotal. But the ideas were both counter-intuitive and compellingly sensible. The broken windows theory of crime prevention; why we remember who Paul Revere is, but have forgotten his compatriot who rode the other way; how to stop the smoking epidemic (of great interest to me, as a soon-to-be-non-smoker); why children who watched Sesame Street consistently are more likely to be readers as adults. Oh, yea, and Peter Jennings is a Republican. If a book can convince me of that, it's a tight piece of propaganda.
How 'bout that, I just now found Gladwell's webpage. I highly recommend his most recent New Yorker article, The Naked Face.
Article comments
1 - Oliver
One of the best books I've ever read. Changes how you look at things - and you can see little tipping points in this whole blog-thing.
2 - Steve Rhodes
Gladwell has a section on the book on his site.
A couple of my favorite articles by him are the Coolhunters (the issues were explored further in Frontline's Merchants of Cool) and the Science of the Sleeper about Mary Gay Shipley and her bookstore. You can see what she is reading at the bottom of the newsletter.
3 - Mark Mavroudis
I just finished reading The Tipping Point this weekend. I enjoyed the book also. Many of the ideas were concepts we've heard before (i.e. Crossing the Chasm), but Gladwell does an excellent job of synthesizing and tying all of the threads together to support his thesis.
4 - Blaine HIlton
Hey I just checked it and now its only $8.97, perhaps that $1.50 saved can start something that starts 10 other things that starts even more motion and pretty soon since 1 person clicked on the book link the whole world will sing in peace?
Or maybe I need to get more sleep?
5 - Henry Joseph Rychlicki
Good Luck Malcolm
Henry Joseph Rychlicki Author
6 - olivia
Great book.