Tipping Point Checklist
Cayuga Reads has selected The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by
Malcolm Gladwell as its selection for October 2007.
This short checklist can be used to gauge how much practical application you have made of
Tipping Point to increase an initiative in your organization. After completion, you will be able to
reflect on how well you are using the Tipping Point principles, or how you might better use them
to increase the success of your program.
Yes
No
Question
Does your program have at least one connector involved with its activities? (You
should think of this person as making good use of a very powerful Rolodex.)
Does your program have at least one maven involved with its activities? (You
should think of this person as very able to assemble a huge store of information
and share his/her understanding easily with others.)
Does your program have at least one salesman involved with its activities? (You
should think of this person as very able to encourage others to embrace new ideas.
Have you tried changing the context in which you operate your program? (For
example, people wanting to stop crime in a neighborhood might do simple things
such as keep the trash picked up and the gutters clear.
Does your program’s message have stickiness? (Does the message “stick” in
people’s minds and seem almost to push them into action?)
Is awareness of your program spreading by word of mouth among the people who
need to know about it? (For example, if your program is to prepare students for
school by making sure that every four-year old in the city is enrolled in a preschool, is this a topic of conversation at well child visits or the “buzz” among
preschool providers in the community?)
Have you done something to break through communication immunity? (This
would be something to change the attitude that yours is just one more “ho-hum
message that people don’t have time to act on.”
Have you worked to encourage awareness of the issue in groups where people have
a sense of belonging and genuine social bonds with each other? (For example,
sales and popularity of the novel Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood tipped
when it became a hit at small independent women’s book clubs?) Read
Manipulating the Size of a Group to learn more about this point.
Have you noticed any new contagious behavior? Without much effort on our part,
have actions supportive of your program begun to spread like the common cold?
(For example, overnight it seems that almost everyone knows about the LiveStrong
yellow bracelet and wants to wear one. The Lance Armstrong Foundation believes
that the Tipping Point was reached when Olympic athletes wore the bracelets and
waved their arms on the medal stands reaching an audience of millions.)
Do you believe that people can really change their behavior in ways that will help
tip in favor of your program? Read Belief in the Potential to Make Change to
learn more about this point.
Adapted from http://www.preventcancer.org/tipping_point/checklist.cfm, accessed 2/7/2007.
Terms to know:
Connector – people who know lots of people. They relate to others easily and have a natural gift for making
friends and social connections. Connectors spread the message either by bringing people together or by
connecting people to new information.
Maven – people who are interested in gaining knowledge and passing that knowledge along because they want
to educate and help others. Gladwell explains that mavens differ from connectors. “What sets the mavens apart is
how they pass information along,” he states. “ A connector might tell ten people something and five might take
his advice; a maven might tell five people the same thing, but would make the case so emphatically that all five
would take his advice.”
Salesmen – people who have the skills and personality that enable them to persuade people to agree with them.
They “have the ability to send emotion, to be contagious.”
Power of Context – Gladwell believes that behavior is a function of social context or environment. Small
changes in the environment can cause an idea to tip.
Stickiness – the property of a message that enables it to have an impact. Stickiness assumes that simple changes
in the presentation, format, and structuring of information can make a big difference in the impact a message
makes. Gladwell believes tinkering a bit with a message may be all you need to make a difference. “There is a
simple way to package information that, under the right circumstances can make it irresistible.”
Word of Mouth – Gladwell contends that even in this technology age, the most effective form of
communication continues to be word of mouth. Word of mouth appeals, he says, may be the only kind of
persuasion to which many of us will respond. When the right people (The law of the Few) are armed with the
right message (one that “sticks”) word of mouth can be our most effective tool to spread ideas.
Communication Immunity – when epidemics spread rapidly they become more powerful, but more and more
people will also build immunity to the virus, and it will come “screeching to a halt.” This phenomenon also
occurs in social epidemics. People who are bombarded with repeated messages over time become resistant to the
ideas the message conveys.
Manipulating the Size of the Group – Groups can play an important role in spreading the message. Peer
pressure, social norms and other influences can sweep people in a group into behavior change. The Rule of 150
states that a smaller group of 150 or fewer is best to serve as “incubators for the spread of ideas.” Larger groups
tend to splinter and disagree.
Behavior is Contagious – Like viruses, ideas and behaviors are contagious. A small number of people can
begin to behave differently and the behavior spreads, ultimately infecting a large number of people. To
demonstrate the point, Gladwell tells the story of the sudden rise in the Hush Puppies shoe trend. For many years,
Hush Puppies had fallen out of favor. Then, with no advertising, the shoes were selling like hotcakes. The trend
spread rapidly when a few “cool” kids began wearing the shoes on the streets of New York. These people
infected others with their fashion sense and with the Hush Puppies’ “virus.”
Belief in the Potential to Make Change – Gladwell says what underlies all successful social epidemics is the
optimistic belief that people can make change happen and that people do change. With the right kind of stimulus
and motivation transformation can occur. While this idea contradicts our notion that our belief system is strong
and unwavering, there is plenty of proof that with just the right set of factors, human beings change. Believing in
this fundamental idea is critical.
Adapted from http://www.preventcancer.org/tipping_point/checklist.cfm, accessed 2/7/2007.