Tipping Point

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell is a book that describes how major change can occur in society when certain things reach a "tipping point." He uses this concept to describe how seemingly random events through out history are actually caused by this phenomenon. The first and best example of something reaching a tipping point is when he talks about Hush Puppies shoes. The business was slowing down dramatically and management was thinking about giving up on the brand. All of a sudden, people started wearing the shoes in popular Ney York nightclubs. A group of popular socialites started wearing the shoes and soon after people started copying them. Before anyone knew what was going on Hush Puppies were being sold out of almost every store. Sales reached a "tipping point" and the brand that was about to tank witnessed revitalization that nobody could see coming.

Gladwell also makes some observations and tries to tie them to the concept of "tipping points" when it really does not make sense to do so. His argument about the decline of the crime rate in New York appears sound on the surface, but when you dig deeper you can see that he leaves much to be desired. He gives no credit to the fact that there was an increased police presence, and a booming economy that lowered the unemployment rate. There were much larger socioeconomic factors at play than just the crackdown on people who "tag" subway cars and ride for free. Gladwell also strayed from his topic of "tipping points" when he started talking about stickiness. Stickiness is the force that attracts an individual to something when he/she really has no idea why they are drawn to that particular thing. The focus on the book is "tipping points" but he instead went out of the box to describe how stickiness works and really stretched to prove his point.

Overall the writing of Tipping Points was extremely good. Malcolm Gladwell is