Bland Blog

Tipping Point Reflections

Several points jump out at me after reading "The Tipping Point". I think Gladwell uses great examples to illustrate his points. The Kitty Genovese story in the first chapter is one I first heard many years ago (in junior high school). It was first relayed to me in a Civics class and the intent of telling the story was to make myself and my classmates more aware of what was going on around us, and to make us want to become more responsible citizens. It was interesting to hear the story again from a different perspective. Gladwell clearly shows the power of context in that people generally expect others to take charge if there are many others who can, while they usually don't think twice about responding if they are the only one who can respond. It was interesting that humans tend to divert responsibility from themselves when someone else can take it on their shoulders. This illustrates the "The Law of the Few" well as only about 20% of the people are responsible for 80% of what happens (according to Gladwell).

As far as the "Stickiness Factor", he used a great example in Sesame Street. We discussed this in class and also mentioned such products of television as "Grammar Rock" and "History Rock". When these shows have a universal appeal to children, knowledge is shared and the information sticks. Advertising slogans and logos are also effective examples of the stickiness factor. Immediately coming to mind are the slogans, "Where's the beef?" and "Just Do It", from Wendy's and Nike, respectively.

One part of the book that got me thinking was the Rule of 150 in Chapter 5. As this applies in my corporate job, it is a definite example of "too many chefs spoiling the broth". With the hierarchal structure of our mother company and our corporate owner, we far exceed the Rule of 150, and as a result, communication and efficiency at times are pretty poor. Within our smaller sales department, this is not the case, as we have much fewer than 150 people. Unfortunately, corporate policies roll down to us, and are often implemented with little to no communication with those whom the policies most directly affect (i.e. our sales department). So much for strength in numbers..I think Gladwell hit it on the head by advocating Dunbar's thoughts on the brain/neocortex ratio and the Rule of 150.