The Tipping Point
By Malcolm Gladwell
Read the Introduction.
1. What are Hush Puppies? Go to Hushpuppies.com and find their history. What do you
learn?
2. What is Hush Puppies icon (hint: it has four legs)?
3. What two big questions is this book going to answer?
Read Chapter 1 The Three Rules of Epidemics
4. Look up syphilis on the internet. What is it?
5. What are the three rules of the Tipping Point? Name and explain each.
a. Rule 1: ____________________________ . Explain:
b. Rule 2: _____________________________ . Explain:
c. Rule 3: ______________________________ . Explain:
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Read Chapter 2 The Law of the Few
6. How are people connected according to Stanley Milgram?
7. Why are connectors important?
8. What is the connection between connectors and Hush Puppies?
9. What did you learn about Paul Revere?
10. Do you know a connector? Who? Why do you think they are?
11. How would you describe a market maven?
12. Do you know a market maven? Who? Why do you think they are?
13. How are mavens teachers?
14. What are three key points that struck you about the studies on body language in
section 10.
a.
b.
c.
15. Explain chapter 2 to someone who hasn’t read it.
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Read Chapter 3 The Stickiness Factor
16. What were the reasons for the creation of Sesame Street?
17. As a teaching tool, what is television’s weakness?
18. Marketing people have a maxim (rule or law) that an advertisement must be seen at
least ____ times to stick.
19. Direct marketing is sending a message directly to the consumer. That’s the easy but
expensive part; what is the hard part?
20. Why was the gold treasure box so successful?
21. What do we learn from the tetanus flyers?
22. In Advertising, what is the clutter problem?
23. What do you find extraordinary in section 2?
24. Blue’s Clues is stickier than Sesame Street. What are some of the reasons discussed?
25. What does “mutual exclusivity” mean?
26. How does mutual exclusivity relate to stickiness?
27. What did Blue’s Clues do five days in a row?
28. Name something that has been sticky for you.
29.What is the big lesson of stickiness? (See the last paragraph.)
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Read Chapter 4 The Power of Context (Part 1)
30. Read section 1 then take a guess at why the crime rate dropped by a huge margin. It
tipped, take a guess why! (Don’t read ahead, don’t change your answer)
31. What is an epidemic?
32. Was crime in New York an epidemic in the 1980’s? Why or why not?
33. What are some of the reasons crime declined in the 1990’s?
34. What is the broken window theory of crime?
35. How did New York apply the broken window theory to graffiti?
36. How did New York apply the broken window theory to fare-beating?
37. What is something at SHS that we could apply the broken window theory to?
38. What does context mean?
39. What do find particularly interesting about the inmates and guards study done at
Stanford?
40. What is FAE and what does it mean? Give an example not mentioned in the book.
41. A person’s character is very consistent over all situations. Agree or disagree? Defend
your position using facts form the book.
42.
Summarize chapter 4.
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Read Chapter 5 The Power of Context (Part 2)
43. What are the three reasons the book The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
tipped?
44. Who does Gladwell call a “super Paul Revere”?
45. Why was the Methodist movement so successful?
46. What is the lesson of “Ya-Ya” and John Wesley?
47. Our channel capacity is the magic number ______ . The same number as phone
numbers. But why are we able to remember 10 digit phone numbers (this isn’t in the
book but take a guess)?
48. Why are groups best at a number of 150 or less?
49. What happens when groups get larger than 150?
50. What is transactive memory?
51. What does the example of the Gore Company tell us?
52.
What is the “paradox of the epidemic”?
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Read Chapter 6 Case Study
53. Explain why the Airwalk brand tipped. Use multiple points and principles from the
book.
54. What is the chasm between different acceptance groups?
55. How do connectors, mavens, and salesmen help bridge the chasm?
56. Discuss what the idea of translation means in the context of this book.
57. DeeDee Gordon was hired by Lambesis who did the advertising for Airwalk. She is a
maven of what? (quote the book)
58. What’s an innovator?
59. What’s a trendsetter?
60. What mistakes did Airwalk make? What do you learn about marketing from that?
61. Make a connection to something current that you see was cool and now they’re not.
Why do you think that happened?
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Read Chapter 7 Case Study
62. For this chapter, choose 5 paragraphs that make the most interesting points to you.
Write the page number and the first five words. Then explain the point that is being
made and the application of that point.
63. Paragraph #1. Page _____ first 5 words ________________________________
a. What is the point?
b. Explain why it is so important or interesting and its application.
64. Paragraph #2. Page _____ first 5 words ________________________________
a. What is the point?
b. Explain why it is so important or interesting and its application.
65.
Paragraph #3. Page _____ first 5 words ________________________________
a. What is the point?
b. Explain why it is so important or interesting and its application.
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YES 
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66. Paragraph #4. Page _____ first 5 words ________________________________
a. What is the point?
b. Explain why it is so important or interesting and its application.
67. Paragraph #5. Page _____ first 5 words ________________________________
a. What is the point?
68. Explain why it is so important or interesting and its application.
69. What did you learn about smoking?
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Read Chapter 8 Conclusion
70. What are five things you can take away from The Tipping Point?
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
71. What is the overall message of the book?
72. Pick a topic and suggest a course of action that would apply the principles of The
Tipping Point that you think would cause a benefit to that topic to tip.
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