The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell (2000)

Malcolm Gladwell, a writer at The New Yorker magazine, has become better known for his books than his articles in recent years.  He has written a string of bestsellers in the new millenium:  The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, and What the Dog Saw.  Gladwell fittingly started with The Tipping Point, a view into understanding change.


In short, and in Gladwell’s own words, this is “a book about change.  In particular, it’s a book that presents a new way of understanding why change so often happens as quickly and as unexpectedly as it does.”  The book title is from epidemiology:  when epidemics reach critical mass, they are said to have reached a tipping point.

There are three factors to trends/changes/epidemics:

1. Law of the Few:  3 specific types of people create great leverage towards tipping:  connectors, mavens, and salesmen


2. The Stickiness Factor


3. Power of Context

Here's a nice synopsis of the book, chapter by chapter, at WikiSummaries.org.

Want to know more?  Read the book. :)