The Tipping Point

I was on my way back from Kolkata to Hyderabad . I am one of the loyal customers of Air Deccan (thanks to its Rs. 500 ticket!).

On board I was just flipping through the latest Deccan magazine & the lady sat besides me was engrossed in reading a book. I did have a look at the name of the book, it was 'The Tipping Point. I never heard of that book.

I did google about that book later but yet to read it. It's a sociological book written by Malcolm Gladwell. But the ideas/concepts discussed in that book has great relevance for the marketing professionals. Kotler, during his recent visit to India in one conversation did mention about 'The Tipping point'.

It talks about social epidemics. The concept has been applied to any process in which beyond a certain point, the rate at which the process (chemical, sociological, etc.) proceeds increases dramatically. This can be extended to word of mouth advertising & lot many marketing areas.

He has also written another good book 'Blink: The power of thinking without thinking'.

He discusses concepts like 'thin slicing' : our ability to gauge what is really important from a very narrow period of experience. In other words, spontaneous decisions are often as good as - or even better than - carefully planned and considered ones.Let me get hold of these two & read at one go!