100 Great Business Ideas: From Leading Companies Around the World (100 Great Ideas)

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82 • 100 GREAT BUSINESS IDEAS


The spre a d of products or ideas and the decline of others are
rarely understood. Writer Malcolm Gladwell has developed the
idea of the “tipping point”: a compelling theory about how an idea
becomes an epidemic. The “tipping point” is the dramatic moment
when everything changes simultaneously because a threshold
has been crossed—although the situation might have been building
for some time.


The idea


Malcolm Gladwell likens rapid growth, decline, and coincidence to
epidemics. Ideas are “infectious,” fashions represent “outbreaks,”
and new ideas and products are “viruses.” Gladwell explains how
a factor “tips”—when a critical mass “catches” the infection,
and passes it on. This is when a shoe becomes a “fashion craze,”
social smoking becomes “addiction,” and crime becomes a “wave.”
Advertising is a way of infecting others.


Several factors are signifi cant in making sure that an idea “tips”:



  1. The law of the few. Epidemics only need a small number of people
    to infect many others. This is apparent with the spread of disease:
    it is the few people who socialize and travel the most that make
    the difference between a local outbreak and a global pandemic.
    Similarly, word of mouth is a critical form of communication: those
    who speak the most (and the best) create epidemics of ideas. There
    are three types of people: connectors, mavens, and salespeople.

    • Connectors bring people together, using their social skills
      to make connections. They are key agents in the spread




35 The tipping point

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