Book Review Draft 2

AOL. MySpace. Facebook. YouTube. Twitter. We live in a society of trends. Some of these trends last, but most don’t. As proven by the above list, some of these have already faded into the last decade. Inevitably, a new trend will come along that pushes the older one out of the public eye. How do these trends even begin? Why do some trends catch on, while others fail? In attempting to design effective change, many of us have likely experienced the latter. We hope to provide innovation or invention for what we have in our minds as a great idea. Is it really enough to simply believe in our message and “never give up” or are we missing certain aspects that keeps our message from spreading through the population?

“Never give up!”---the memorable phrase we consistently engrave into our minds. We hope that perseverance is enough motivation for us to make a move in the specific message that we are trying to spread. I heard the phrase from my high school tennis coach my freshman year. She made it the most memorable message that I have ever received in my life. She was someone I trusted, someone who motivated and inspired me. The moment I heard this message was the unarguable “dramatic moment” that became the tipping point for my tennis career. Perhaps the reason it is so memorable for me is that I was on the tennis court---the place that I felt most comfortable. Both the environment and the person I received it from mattered for me.

It was a combination of these two factors, the context and environment which I received it in that allowed the message to impact me the way it did. Similarly, Malcolm Gladwell, in The Tipping Point, describes these three rules that cause the Tipping Point to be: The Law of the Few, the Law of Context, and the Stickiness factor.

Growing up, even on the playground, we always notice that one child who is the loudest. The bossiest. The one that convinces all the other kids on the block to play his game. To play tag when everyone else wants to play hide and go seek. I know I always admired this personality who was able to take an idea and spread it around to all of the other kids. Even now, it seems as if some people just have “it” and some people don’t. What is “it”? Apparently, there is not only one “it”, but three. Gladwell describes three different types of personalities as those who are able to spread change, to create the tipping point that produces an epidemic.

When most of us think of someone who is able to spread an epidemic, we think of that dominant, outgoing, personality who is the most popular or knows everyone. This is what Gladwell describes as a “connector”. Connectors are the type of people that have 1500 Facebook friends, the type of people who easily meet friends and acquaintances and retain a solid social network. Roger Horchow, a successful business man from Dallas, is depicted in the book as a social-network fiend. He “collects people the way others collect stamps”(45). Horchow keeps track of acquaintances’ birthdays, and essentially keeps in touch with everyone that he meets. Doing what Horchow does is unimaginable to me. In my opinion, it is the most elaborate and exaggerated example in the book. I think there are many excellent connectors, or what we would call “networkers”, but not in the way that Horchow is described. He writes down everyone’s name and is completely happy with calling someone a friend after meeting him once.
Connectors have a way of staying in touch with people without having the discomfort that most of us have when talking to a “weak tie” or “not-so-good-friend”. In a student world, we are often put in touch with various people that have various connections, such as a dean that could put us in touch with whoever we need to answer our questions. We try to build connections with a diverse group of recruiters because we know they have connections to a full-time job or internship. It’s not necessarily part of our personality nor may it come as easy as it does to the natural “connector”, but we learn to do it. It’s a fact that building relationships with other people has a direct correlation with job placement, as 56 percent of people find their job through a personal connection (54). It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that connectors are responsible for the “word of mouth” epidemics. It only makes sense---the more people you know, the more people you tell, the more people who believe in an idea.

One of the ways that Roger Horchow was able to be acquainted with so many various people was because he kept a personal book of their contact information. The emergence of social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) and technology (Blackberry, IPhone) has allowed us to basically be reachable at any given point in time. The current environment and technology that we are a part of facilitates and makes it easier for us to become these “connectors”—to a point where it almost seems like we are cheating. But the results of Facebook and its ability to spread an idea prove that connections are essential. Even the school library has a Facebook page to spread the word about any events coming up.

So, for many of us, Facebook—the site of connections, the site that helps us become better connected, is a news source as well. It’s the source college students use to learn about library events, concerts, and parties. While connectors are those who connect us to the right people, mavens are those who connect us to proper information. Mavens have a remarkable amount of expert knowledge in certain areas, and use that information to help others to get the best deal. Mavens are convincing, without being conniving. We consistently take their advice because they want to help, not “twist our arm”. A maven, essentially, is a “data bank” and uses that knowledge to help others.

Gladwell uses Paul Revere’s reign of information spread in 1775 to portray the need for a connector and a maven. In Paul Revere’s night ride, he was both a maven and a connector because he helped discover the message that the British were coming(maven), and then used it to pass along (connector). Similarly, Yunus can be seen as both a maven and a connector. He was both the “designer” of his project of micro-crediting, and the one to diffuse the project. By designing and discovering what just a few cents could do, Yunus was a maven. By using his connections to the banks and the network he attained in college, he was a connector. Without a connector, a maven has no source to spread its knowledge, and without a maven, a connector has no data to spread.

Muhammad Yunus, a professor of economics was able to pull from his knowledge to affect the entire country of Bangladesh. Yunus exhibits the qualities of a maven and proves that by giving small, “micro”, loans to the poor, they are able to invest it. Yunus, a learned man of economics, was simply looking for a way to apply the degree that he was lucky enough to earn. In small integrals, their return on income grows, and they move above the poverty line. This idea of “microcrediting” seems to contradict the idea of profit and economic growth, but in fact succeeds in “stickiness”. The financing grows from Yunus’ own pocket to an actual banking institution. The 20 dollars that Yunus used was an investment that turned into a project that ultimately brings millions of people out of poverty. Just as a “small” investment for the poor helps them change their lives around greatly. A small push from Yunus’ to apply his knowledge in economics gave microfinancing the push it needed. Yunus is the ideal example of a maven, a person who uses his obsession with subject matter (ie: economics) to help get others the best deal.

Mavens are not all-powerful or omniscient. They do not have the power to convince everyone of their expertise, which Yunus discovered when the banks initially refused to make micro loans. In my opinion, Gladwell seems to imply that mavens have the personality that engages others to listen. However, maybe mavens just know the right people to engage. They know who will be engaged, how to get them to be engaged, and most importantly, the right people to engage. The right people need to listen for an idea to spread. The right people are those that will continue to spread the idea: the salesmen.

I don’t believe that Yunus was a “salesman” the way that Gladwell describes the word. His exterior personality did not seem to help his ability to sell the idea. All of his “selling” was done by his desire to spread his expertise and information, which makes him more of a maven. Nonetheless, when Yunus opened Grameen Bank, he found professional salesmen in the bank’s workers.

“Salesmen”, as we think of the word, are those outgoing personality type that we consider persuasive, ruthless, and maybe even annoying. Gladwell, however, says that the traits of a salesman are energy, enthusiasm, charm, and likeability. Think of salesmen as the representatives of an idea. Salesmen have an ability to win over the trust of the consumer. They are the ones we typically notice and see on the exterior looking in. Salesmen don’t create an idea, nor do they have a personal connection to that idea as mavens do, they simply sell an idea that is already in existence.
Atul Gawande in Better, writes about the World Health Organization(WHO), which had the goal of eradicating polio from the world (Gawande 31). The WHO, however, had no jurisdiction or authority to mandate vaccines, so it had to depend on its human resources to spread the idea. Pankaj Bhatnagar was the physician that became the salesman for the polio vaccines.

Pankaj proves that salesmen need not be loud, Salesmen understand the product, as well as their customers. Pankaj knew what the “consumers” had to lose, and so when he was selling the vaccine, he did so in a caring manner. Salesmen are able to bend their “sell” and personality to whatever and whomever it is they may need to sell it to. They understand that not everyone is going to buy their product, and understand the cost benefit ratio. Pankaj knew that it was better to pass up one family than try to “force drops on people”, which could cost him more families (Gawande 45).
If there is one concept that Gladwell describes greatly in this chapter, or even in the book, it’s subtlety. Selling does not necessarily equal the loud, conniving, annoying sales person. Selling may just be the person who knows how to stop talking, or the person who smiles at the right point of the conversation. The common theme throughout the Tipping Point is that small things do matter and make a big difference. For salesmen, the subtleties in what they do are what make them persuasive. The biggest characteristic of Pankaj’s personality that made him persuasive had nothing to do with talking or convincing. It was the subtle, often missing, idea of listening. He listened to those that he was trying to sell to, and that’s what allowed him to gain trust.

I think there are some other personality traits among the salespeople, mavens, and connectors. Each of them have a sense of diligence. They care about what they do. The three different types of people may not necessarily be attached to the particular idea they are selling. But salesmen are personally attached to selling the idea, mavens are attached to learning about an idea, and connectors are attached to meeting the people that could use that idea. In my mind, they all exhibit the idea of diligence and perseverance---that same idea of “never giving up”. This is one aspect that Gladwell does not explore in the book. If we are missing his three factors, but apply diligence, is that enough? Or would the inability to find these three factors be his definition of insanity?
Although Gladwell’s factors seem to encompass a large amount, we are in a world of change---improving technology, changing types of people in power, and I wonder how these will affect his ideas. The dynamics of “The Law of the Few” are constantly changing in the technology-filled world that we are a part of. As described with Facebook, various programs make it easier for technology to do what once only people could do. The ideas presented in The Law of the Few are very ideal, but very general. Gladwell seems to decipher each person as an innate-born of that type, which makes that perfect connector impossible to find. However, a high percentage of Generation Y likely feel as if they are connectors. This trait is pushed along by our surrounding environment and technology---what Gladwell describes to be the “Law of Context”.

The “Law of Context” insists that our surrounding environment is what allows us to succeed in diffusion of an idea. What Gladwell describes as the “Power of 150” is what I believe to be his most interesting idea. He writes that only in smaller groups, groups less than 150, can change be spread. In these smaller groups, we are held accountable for our own actions. People know each other well enough that we feel the need to spread the change, and be productive contributors to an idea. Peer pressure can be extremely important to innovation and making ideas better. We saw this in Atul Gawande’s Better. Perhaps one of the biggest reasons that hand washing is a such a threat to hospitals is because it is so difficult to trace back to the convict that cause a virus to a particular patient. Having the responsibility put on a person makes a big difference.

Interestingly enough, the University of Illinois utilizes the Power of 150 in its Registered Student Organizations (RSOs). Most of the organizations on campus are less than 150, or right around that number. With one of the biggest Greek Systems in the nation, each sorority or fraternity has about 150 people. Each RSO has a mission statement, and the organization essentially fights for that cause. My business fraternity is currently co-sponsoring the Illini Summer Opportunity Organization(ISOO), a philanthropy that helps children in the area attend summer camps. Each member of the business fraternity is given a mandatory 5 tickets to sell, and we are held accountable for it through our mandatory philanthropy hours. The group is small enough so that we must take responsibility. We are behaving as salespeople by selling the tickets, but also mavens by selling charitable idea of summer camps for children. But another reason the number 150 is so powerful, is that it is small enough for us to be close, but big enough for us to connect to the outside. As we sell our tickets, we are being connectors. Each 100 or so members of the fraternity are members of other organizations, clubs, or even just academic classes. When we sell our tickets to a person in a different organization, we are essentially connecting that new 150 group of people to our idea. This causes a chain reaction and epidemic, until eventually; we reach every organization on campus. That is the ideal.

The ideal doesn’t always happen. While Tipping Point does a good job at pointing out characteristics that every trend includes, readers should be careful to look at this as an exhaustive list. Gladwell simplifies effective change into 279 pages, when in reality, change isn’t only about the input and process behind the cause, but also the outlying factors of the status quo and the competitors of change. MAYBE ADD IN SOME OTHER FACTORS THAT I THINK MATTER HERE or would that be too much? Other factors matter too: among them is the stickiness factor that Gladwell mentions.

The final factor that Gladwell discusses is the Stickiness Factor, which I will not go into depth on because I believe it is the most obvious of the three factors. The message matters. The way in which the message is presented and how it is presented is essential to whether the message is spread and successful. The message “Never give up” was memorable to me; it stuck to me. Moving from the bottom seed of the varsity team my freshman year to a state qualifier and team captain my sophomore year, I learned to lead and spread perseverance by example. Were there other ways that this message could have been spread? Most definitely. But Gladwell’s book is about finding the fit for the environment. Although it worked for me, for 15 high school girls, hearing a coach screaming three words is not the way to make a message “sticky”. Only by witnessing that application of perseverance could make them successful, were the 15 girls on my tennis team buying into the example. Three years after I have left the team, I still go back to matches. The player winning the most matches isn’t the one that has the most talent, but the one that makes the biggest hustles, gets to the most balls, the one that “never gives up”. I smile because I know that the message of perseverance is continuing to spread. Girls that have never met my old tennis coach, still live by her words. Messages that have achieved a tipping point continue to live on.

In the end, Gladwell’s inspiring story of how “small changes can make a big difference” displayed the truths of his very own ideas. The Tipping Point became a New York Times best seller, a book read by business classes, companies, and inspiring entrepreneurs all over the world. Gladwell, himself, has been able to create a “tipping point” for the book by the very same name.