How to Start a
Revolution
HappyFeet has made the best effort possible to put these items in
some form of coherent order. This book used alot of marketing/business
angles. I chose to replace those examples, etc. with art, creativity, and
revolution. Use this to make the truth bloom.
THE TIPPING POINT
IS:
- That one
dramatic moment in an epidemic when everything can change all at
once.
- The
moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point, a place where
the unexpected becomes expected, where radical change is more than
possibility. It is a certainty. Epidemics...
- Tip b/c
of the extraordinary efforts of a few select carriers. But they also
sometimes tip when something happens to transform the epidemic agent
itself.
- Ideas
and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses
do.
- Are
another example of geometric progression: when a virus spreads through
a population, it doubles and doubles again into infinity.
- Epidemics are a function of the people who transmit infectious
agents, the infectious agent itself, and the environment in which the
infectious agent is operating:
- They
(Epidemics) have clear examples of contagious behavior.
- They
both have little changes that make big effects.
- It
takes only the smallest of changes to shatter an epidemic's
equilibrium.
- They
happen in a hurry.
- This is
the most important trait, b/c it is the principle that makes sense of
the first two and that permits the greatest insight into why modern
change happens the way it does.
- Epidemics
involve straightforward simple things; a "product" (I put this in quotes
b/c Gladwell writes this book using mostly marketing/business ideas.
However, I see it as a way to spark revolution.) and a message.
- In order
to create one contagious movement, you often have to create many small
movements first.
- Contagiousness is in larger part a function of the messenger.
Stickiness is primarily a property of the message.
THE
LAW OF THE FEW
There are exceptional people out there who are capable of starting
epidemics. All you have to do is find them. With an epidemic, a tiny
majority of the people do the work. Once critical factor in epidemics is
the nature of the messenger. Messengers make something spread. Word of
mouth is still the most important form of human communication. Rumors are
the most contagious of all social messages.
Connectors
- People
with a special gift for bringing the world together, people
specialists
- Know lots
of people
- Have an
extraordinary knack of making friends and acquaintances, making social
connections.
- Have
mastered the "weak tie"; a friendly, yet casual social
connection.
- Manage to
occupy many different worlds and subcultures and niches. By having a
foot in so many different worlds, they have the effect of bringing them
all together.
- Acquaintances represent a source of social power, and the more
acquaintances you have the more powerful you are.
- Social
glue: they spread the message
Mavens
- Information specialists
- Once
they figure out how to get that great deal, they want to tell you
about it too.
- Solves
his own problems, his own emotional needs, by solving other people's
problems.
- Have
knowledge and the social skills to start word-of-mouth
epidemics.
- A
teacher and a student
- In a
social epidemic, Mavens are data banks. They provide the
message.
Salespeople
- Have
the skills to persuade when we are unconvinced of what we are
hearing.
- Little
things can make as much of a difference as big things.
- Gives
nonverbal clues that are more important than verbal
clues.
- "Interactional synchrony": human interaction has a rhythmic
physical dimension. We dance to each other's speech…we're perfectly
in harmony.
- Motor
mimicry: we imitate each other's emotions as a way of expressing
support and caring and, even more basically, as a way of
communicating with each other. Emotion is contagious. "Senders" are
very good at expressing emotions and feelings. They are far more
emotionally contagious than the rest of
us.
- Persuasion often works in ways that we do not
appreciate
- You
draw others into your own rhythms and dictate the terms of the
interaction.
THE STICKINESS FACTOR
There is a simple way to package information that, under the right
circumstances, can make it irresistible/sticky and compels a person into
action. All you have to do is find it. In order to be capable of sparking
epidemics, ideas have to be memorable and move us into action. Content of
the message matters too.
- What is
needed is a subtle but significant change in presentation to make most
messages stick.
- The
elements that make an idea sticky turn out to be small and
trivial.
- "Clutter"
has made it harder and harder to get any one message to stick. The
information age has created a stickiness problem.
- Pay
careful attention to the structure and format of your material, and you
can dramatically enhance stickiness.
- Can tip a
message by tinkering, on the margin, with the presentation of their
ideas THE POWER OF CONTEXT
We don't
necessarily appreciate that our inner states are the result of our outer
circumstances. We are more than just sensitive to changes in context.
We're exquisitely sensitive to them. And the kinds of contextual changes
that are capable of tipping an epidemic are very different than we might
ordinarily suspect. The impetus to engage in a certain kind of behavior is
not coming from a certain kind of person but from a feature of the
environment.
- Small
changes in context can be just as important in tipping epidemics.
- An
environmental argument.
- What
really matters is little things
- "Broken
Windows Theory": in a city, relatively minor problems like graffiti,
public disorder, and aggressive panhandling, are all the equivalent of
broken windows, invitations to more serious crimes (Rudy Gulliani's
belief)
- An
epidemic can be reversed/tipped by tinkering with the smallest details
of the immediate environment.
- There are
specific situations so powerful that they can overwhelm our inherent
predispositions.
- Human
beings invariably make the mistake of overestimating the importance of
fundamental character traits and underestimating the importance of the
situation and context. We are a lot more attuned to personal cues than
contextual cues.
- Character
is more like a bundle of habits and tendencies and interests, loosely
bound together and dependent, at certain times, on circumstances and
context.
- The
convictions of your heart and the actual contents of your thoughts are
less important, in the end, in guiding your actions then the immediate
context of your behavior.
THE MAGIC NUMBER 150
"There seems to be some limitation built into us either by
learning or by the design of the nervous systems, a limit that keeps our
channel capacities in this general range (i.e. the human minds inability
to comprehend things beyond sets 7)" —George Miller "The Magical Number
Seven"
"The
figure of 150 seems to represent the maximum number of individuals with
whom we can have a genuinely social relationship, the kind of relationship
that goes with knowing who they are and how they relate to us. Putting it
another way, it's the number of people you would not feel embarrassed
about joining uninvited for a drink if you happened to bump into them in a
bar." —Robin Dunbar,
- Even
relatively small increases in the size of a group [beyond 150] creates a
significant additional social and intellectual burden.
- The rule
of 150 suggests that the size of a group is another one of those subtle
contextual factors that can make a big difference.
- Peer
pressure is much more powerful than a concept of a boss
- Transactive memory: we store information with other people.
Since mental energy is limited, we concentrate on what we do
best.
- Groups of
150 are an organized mechanism that makes it far easier for new ideas
and information moving around the organization to tip; to go from one
person or one part of the group to the entire group all at once.
CONCLUSION
First Lesson of the
Tipping Point
Starting epidemics requires concentrating resources on a few key
areas. Your resources ought to be solely concentrated on the Connectors,
Mavens, and Salesmen.
Second Lesson
of the Tipping Point
The world does not accord with our intuition. Those who are
successful at creating social epidemics do not just do what they think is
right. They deliberately test their intuitions.
to
top Important
Conclusion!
What must underlie successful epidemics, in the end, is a bedrock
belief that change is possible, that people can radically transform their
behavior or beliefs in the face of the right kind of impetus. Tipping
Points are a reaffirmation of the potential for change and the power of
intelligent action. Look at the world around you. It may seem like an
immovable, implacable place. It is not. With the slightest push; just in
the right place; it can be tipped. NOTES, ETC.
Diffusion model: a detailed, academic way of looking at how a
contagious idea or "product" or innovation moves through a
population.
- Innovators: the adventurous ones. Visionaries.
- Connectors, mavens, and salesmen make it possible for
innovations to connect with the early adopters. They are translators:
they make ideas and information from a highly specialized world and
translate them into a language the rest of us can understand. They
drop extraneous details and exaggerate other details so that the
message itself acquires a deeper meaning.
- Early
adopters: the slightly larger group that is infected by the innovators.
Visionaries.
- Early
Majority: the deliberate and the skeptical mass, who would never try
anything until the most respected of this group try it first.
- Late
Majority
- Laggards:
the most traditional group that see no urgent reason to change.
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