Blog #7 – “The Tipping Point”

Blog about what you learned about “The Tipping Point” factor and how it can apply to social media.

Malcolm Gladwell has definitely captured and divulged ideas that are not only extremely innovative ideas but can actually be utilized by the average businessperson. A lot of times, business-oriented books come out with these amazing concepts but either (a) do not include the “how to”, (b) are filled with too much unexplained jargon and irrelevant notions, or (c) only apply to a small fraction of the business world. The resources I’ve read thus far for this course do a very good job of avoiding these aforementioned complications. I can personally relate to many of Gladwell’s ideas.

For instance, his revelation of today’s changes tantamount to the behavior of epidemic parallels some of my own observations about the level of popularity certain products and services have shown. Obvious examples include but are not limited to: YouTube, smartphones, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and Netflix. Most of the time I find myself behind the trends, I’m constantly asking my friends just what they are talking about. These media are super contagious and more often than not I too eventually become a part of the infected. Gladwell keys different businesses in on how they can obtain the power of vast influence and apply it – which is something I assume to be coveted by much of the marketplace.

The word “epidemic” tends to denote negativity, for example, the Black Plague, SARS, the Swine Flu – these were national and global epidemics. But Gladwell points out that an epidemic doesn’t have to be a bad thing and there are such cases in the very near past. Change becomes more accepted as the generations progress but allowing for understanding to take place now helps society now and that’s what we want. Understanding leads to security and a favorable outlook on change because if I can understand why then I will be less likely to object or dismiss going along with changes. Gladwell discloses that one of the things he hopes readers will take away from the book is “how to start ‘positive’ epidemics of their own” (p. 2). I think this could very well be the most important idea to adopt from the book.

Social media is an obvious epidemic. Modern businesses are being given the ultimatum of either hop on the social media train or end up being phased out by those that will. That’s why understanding the behind-the-scenes of lightning-speed changes taking place is so imperative. An analogy that I can think of is that to a stock exchange headquarters. All of us have seen movies where stockbrokers begin their days work, a rollercoaster of “buy” and “sell” whips up and down until the market’s close. This is the same sort of behavior that I am seeing with advances in technology. Not all of the products are a success, but the ones that are show to be coveted by almost everyone immediately.