While this does a great job of describing epidemics, I don't think it provides or elicits many implementable strategies for business owners. There are other books which I think do a better job of getting to the heart of what it is that can cause an epidemic or push something over the tipping point. This book simply outlines the process and how it has happened for a few different businesses. The stories were great and I learned a few things about certain companies that I didn't know before, which I enjoyed. However, many of the factors expressed are talked about in terms of not being able to have control over the ultimate outcome, which is why it becomes a nice piece of research reading in regards to the past rather than strategic reading for planning for the future.

Good post Anne,

I'm in the middle of Tipping Point but what I can say based on what I've read so far, everyone should read Tipping Point THEN read Good to Great (which I finished a week or two ago).

Good to Great really takes some of the ideas and stuff from TP and shows how maybe you can take this and use it.

As far as strategy, I think if you can figure out what TP is talking about as far as an idea or new product being "sticky" you can do what he talks about Sesame Street doing - find out which of your own ideas are "sticky" based on what people notice or pay attention to and focus on that.

We had a 'sticky' idea - those 2x3" Renaissance albums. We gave them away to every member of the bridal party for every $2500 package we booked last year. People came to the bridal show and instead of looking at our huge albums, looked almost exclusively at the "oh look at the cute little book." Our Renaissance 10x10" had no staying power. Graphi with the cool cover and textured pages does. So we need to figure out how to make Connectors, Mavens & Salespeople LOVE our Graphi - they will remember it, now we need them to inform, tell and sell people on it.

At least that's what I'm getting from TP so far. heh

That's an interesting take on it. I went away from TP thinking just the opposite. Well, sort of. I thought it did an outstanding job of approaching concept of "epidemic marketing" in a very abstract way while giving real world examples of other actual epidemics.

I thought the value of the book was the fact that it was so open ended.

I see so many books - from self help, to photography theory, to photoshop tecnique, to marketing, etc - where someone steps up and says "I've got it nailed. Now follow these same steps and you too will find success". I realize that's an over generalization of the point you're making, but I'm actually turned off when someone says "do this, this, and this to succeed" because everyone's approach to marketing and business are different, everyone interacts with people differently and everyone is coming from a different place.

Having too many "do it this way" points actually prevents someone like Matt from coming up with a great "sticky" idea of his own - his cute little Renaissance albums. His example takes the abstract concept of the book and finds a unique application for it that suits him and his approach to dealing with clients.


At any rate, I would highly suggest TP to anyone that's trying to step out and begin effective networking and word of mouth advertising. It opened my eyes to a lot of new concepts. The actual applications of those concepts are endless.

I've never heard of "Good to Great" Matt - I'll have to check that out.

There are probably no easy implementations suggested in Tipping Point, but the book is a fabulous read. Malcolm Gladwell is always fascinating and always worth a few minutes of indulgence.

I'm going to check out Made to Stick. Sounds good - thanks for the rec Erik.

I read Good To Great about 5 years ago...really good read. He just came out with sort of an addition which is about the Social Sector. I loved it because it talks about measuring success in other ways besides just money.