Malcolm Gladwell - The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

Pros: There's something for everyone in this book stitching together case studies...
Cons: ...although academics may question some of the rigor.

Malcolm Gladwell, a former Washington Post reporter who also wrote for The New Yorker, has bridged the chasm between academia and current events in his accessible book, The Tipping Point. Gladwell effectively boils down numerous...

Pros: Well-written and well-argued
Cons: He is still a lay scholar

Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference sounded a little too much like an Americanized Taoist book to me at first - something along the lines of a butterfly flapping its wings in South America - which ...

Pros: enjoyable. motivating. helps focus on what's really happening.
Cons: nothing really

I have too many books. I am constantly reading more than one book at a time. At present, I have bedside books (6 in progress), purse books (1 novel, 1 puzzle/game), bathroom books (3) and living room books (4). I also have a stack I call the W.F.R.P. - ...

Pros: interesting, highly organized and well written
Cons: not involving like good novels with no real advice how to use the tipping point

After reading Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking I was less inclined to read The Tipping Point. Still, the tipping point was on my reading list and for some unknown reason I am very loath to remove a book without having read it. ...

Pros: Well-written and thought out, very interesting
Cons: None

After reading Malcom Gladwell's Outliers in just a few days, I couldn't help but pick up another one of his pieces the day after. The Tipping Point is yet another phenomenal writing by Gladwell, as he brings us in-depth analysis of things we always ...

Pros: very interesting book that explains word of mouth
Cons: very short -- you'll want to read more

I've always wondered what it takes for an idea to catch on...to go from a small group to a larger one to eventually becoming part of the mainstream culture.

There are several theories. One is that ideas are actually like viruses. These...

Pros: densely packed with interesting tidbits and thought provoking premises, and
Cons: No real conclusions are drawn... The facts are left to dangle, and while a theory is grasped for, it doesn't hold weight.

After finishing The Tipping Point I attended a reading Malcolm Gladwell gave at a local bookstore. As he went through the passages in his book, highlighting many key elements of his thesis on the epidemiological spread, from person to person, of...

Pros: Brilliant concept
Cons: Wanders off into some very unscientific speculation

If you visited New York City in the 1980s, you remember the squeegee guys. Your car would be stuck in traffic, waiting for the light to change, and a menacing character would approach your car, squeegee in one hand and sharpened screwdriver in the...

Pros: Interesting ideas/examples
Cons: Makes me a little paranoid - how much am I affected by stuff and don't realize it?

Gladwell describes his book as “the biography of an idea”. He seems to be not so much trying to prove a point as much as outlining the length and breadth of a concept and giving several examples and statistics that add credibility to the idea. The...

Pros: Clear, intuitively appealing, easy read
Cons: Lacks rigor and quantifiable model

We've all heard of viral marketing on the web. Gladwell does a reasonable job of presenting a framework of how a trend / disease / advertising campaign / etc can breach the 'tipping point' breaking out and spreading rapidly. While there is no reason to...

Pros: Provocative ideas about trends and human interaction. Non-intuitive explanations for observed events.
Cons: Suffers from breadth of ideas presented too briefly.

I recommend this book highly. It details problems of human interactions in groups larger than 150 people and gives examples of groups that take action to alleviate those problems. This is interesting information but is, I feel, the least important part...

Pros: easy to read and comprehend. inspires new ways ot thinking.
Cons: gets a little redundent. conclusion is weak compared to beginning.

The Tipping Point is a very enlightening read. Gladwell's case studies of social epidemics, the talented individuals behind them, and other success stories has given me a new perspective about the people and events around me. At first I wasn't sure what...

Pros: Easy read, accessible. Afterwards you can impress friends with terminology like "maven" and "stickiness factor".
Cons: Short on insight, a couple of correlation-causation leaps of logic, longer than necessary.

I was really looking forward to reading this book, as I'm very interested in topics like pop-economics and social trends. Having read several books on the topic of "network economies," which rely heavily on the concept of tipping points, I thought this ...

Pros: Flowing easily understood logical pattern and connection between points.
Cons: Fractured research does not remain on one reference. Easily redeemed with use of footnotes/endnotes.

Found this book to be an amazing read, thought provoking to say the least. Taking events in history that sometimes even surprised the makers of a product and putting it into a perspective often passed over all together. Ever find yourself wondering ...

Pros: Great insight into how word of mouth works
Cons: Wish it was longer

One of the best books I've read in some time. Gladwell is amazing at taking complex theories, explaining them in an understandable way, and the using a real life example to illustrate the point. It's a quick read too - you probably can finish it in a...