You know you’ve read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend –Paul Sweeney

This is exactly how I felt after I completed The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. It is one of the few interesting reads that I came across last month. Full of information and case studies, the book gives an insight on the fact that, “Ideas, products, messages and behaviors spread just like wildfire.”

Tipping point is that point in time when an idea gets viral and becomes huge. But this does not happen on its own. Agents ,contents of the message and circumstances play an extremely vital role.

In this book, Malcolm Gladwell discusses the three laws that cause this Tip.

First Law, is The Law of Few , which states “an idea or behavior spreads because of unusual quantities of few key groups of individuals”. This phenomenon is usually caused by agents which are called - Connectors, Mavens, and Salesman.

Connectors are people who know almost everyone. When you look at a connector, you get astonished at the size of his social circle! Mavens are people with specialized knowledge. If they give you an advice regarding a product, take it, because a Maven is always right. A maven makes it his/her job to know about all the products, prices and everything there is to know regarding a particular brand. Finally, Salesman. These are the people who have the capability of sending the sales of the product “spiraling upwards”, by there sheer enthusiasm and positivity.

Second Law, The Stickiness Factor. It states that the content of the message is as important as the messenger bearing the message. For example Seasame street a popular show was based on the fact that if they can hold the attention of children, they can educate them. Another popular series for children called Blues Clues went a step further and repeated the same episode for five times in a row, which gave kids a chance to understand the clues properly. What better way to make a content stick to your mind than repeating it again and again?

And finally, The Power of Context, states that human behavior can be easily influenced by its environment. For example, The Broken Window concept, which states that a broken window in a building leads to increase in number of crimes in that community. Shocking! Right? But experiments have been conducted surrounding this concept. The explanation goes something like this, a broken window leads to the feeling of abandonment and discontent in society, which leads to people taking part in crimes and gradually the crime rate tips. Another example is the Rule of 150 which states that a group larger than 150 is difficult to manage effectively.

Tipping Point contains many interesting concepts like Bystander problem. When people are in a group, the responsibility diffuses. A person in need will get aid faster if he or she is surrounded by one person rather than a group of people. Its not that the group of people don’t want to help, the reason is that they believe someone else is already at work and hence someone will take care of it. And concepts like 80/20 Rule , 20% of people do 80% of the work.

I believe that everyone who reads the book, will enjoy and find Tipping Point informative, be it an entrepreneur starting a new business or a new graduate student looking for a job. It is a great book for anyone who wants to spread a message or understand how behind the scenes, people and situations work when something gets viral!