The Tipping Point

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell is a book that explores the psychology and meaning behind trends; how some become internationally popular and how others fall to the wayside. For many years people have thought the way that trends occur to be mysterious and inexplicable, however Gladwell's investigations prove that if one looks at the evolution of these trends, the processes involved in each are strikingly similar.

I think back to the major trends that have occurred as I have grown up: the popularity of Converse shoes as opposed to other trainers, facebook as opposed to bebo, UGG boots, and perhaps the biggest trend of all - iPods. Lets take iPods as our example; they were not the first mp3 player to grace the digital market, and looking at the very first models, they were probably not the most attractive either. However, something or someone decided that they were the way forward, and now we see virtually no-one with any music player other than an iPod. This is the sort of thing that Gladwell explores, and explains, and it's very interesting to discover that it's not just good design or good marketing that soars products into international popularity, but that certain types of people play a huge part in getting those products to the top.

Studying a degree where marketing and advertising is a key feature, it is fascinating to learn that a good product alone is not enough to make it sell thousands; knowing lots of the right people (Gladwell describes them as connectors, mavens and salesmen) and making your product appeal to them is really the key to success.

I won't spoil "The Tipping Point" any more for people, but I strongly recommend this book as a thoroughly interesting and insightful read if you are the sort of person that enjoys finding meaning in what before seemed like it could not be explained!