Chapter 8. Conclusion: Focus, Test, and Believe 1. What method did Georgia Sadler find to tip her diabetes/cancer campaign? Would you classify her as a connector, maven, or salesman? Sadler used educating stylists at beauty salons to get her message out. She kept a constant cycle of new information and gossipy tidbits and conversational starters about breast cancer flowing into the salons. She wrote it up in large print and put it on laminated sheets. She changed the context, the messenger and the message itself. She focused her efforts. I would call her a MAVEN.
2. What is Gladwell’s view of a Band-Aid solution? The Band-Aid solution is actually the best kind of solution because it involves solving a problem with the minimum amount of effort and time and cost.
3. What two lessons does he mention from the Tipping Point? a) Starting epidemics requires focusing resources on a few key areas. b) Those who are successful at creating social epidemics do not just do what the think is right. They deliberately test their intuitions.
Afterword. Tipping Point Lessons from the Real World 1. How might the AIDS epidemic have been better combated if it had been examined as a social phenomenon? The AIDS epidemic spreads because of the beliefs and social structures and poverty and prejudices and personalities of a community, and sometimes getting caught up in the precise biological characteristics of a virus merely serves as a distraction: we might have halted the spread of AIDS far more effectively just by focusing on those beliefs and social structures and poverty and prejudices and personalities.
2. What does Gladwell mean when he writes that “we are about to enter the age of word of mouth” (on page 264)? Limitless access to information of the New Economy is going to lead us to rely more and more on very primitive kinds of social contacts. Relying on the Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen in our life is the way we deal with the complexity of the modern world.
3. What does Gladwell mean by the phrase “the Age of Isolation”? Teens doing something entirely unique to their own culture. They do not mimic an adult practice or react to something the adult world has imposed on them. They are simply following the internal rules of their cultures, as if they were entirely blind to what adults said and did. We have given teens more time to spend among themselves - and less time in the company of adults.
4. What is Gladwell’s take on school shootings like Columbine? Gladwell says that it is a mistake to try to make sense of these kinds of actions by blaming influences of the outside world - in terms of broader trends of violence and social breakdown. In the press, this wave of shootings and would-be shootings has sometimes been portrayed as part of a larger wave of violence. Much attention has also been paid to the social circumstances of the children involved in these incidents. But to have kids growing up in disaffection and loneliness is hardly a new development. Millions of kids who grow up emotionally impoverished don't walk into their school one morning and start shooting. The difference is Columbine. Andy Williams was infected by the example of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. These are epidemics in isolation: they follow a mysterious, internal script that makes sense only in the closed world that teenagers inhabit. Ritualized, dramatic, self-destructive behavior among teenagers has extraordinary contagious power.
5. What is the “fax effect”? How does “immunity” negate the “fax effect”? The "fax effect" was a concept written by Kevin Kelly, a guru of the New Economy. Kelly also calls it the law of plentitude. Value comes from scarcity. The conventional "icons of wealth" are precious because they are rare. And when something scarce becomes plentiful it loses value. When people are overwhelmed with information and develop immunity, they turn to instead for advice and information to people in their lives. The cure for immunity is finding Mavens, Connectors and Salesmen.
