Class Experiment
8.0
7.5
7.0
6.5
6.0
Mean
5.5
QUIZMAST
CONTESTA
5.0
quizmaster
ROLE
contestant
observer
The Tipping Point (M. Gladwell)
“The Tipping Point is the biography of an idea and
the idea is very simple. It is that the best way to
understand the emergence of fashion trends, the
ebb and flow of crime waves, or, for that matter,
the transformation of unknown books into
bestsellers, or the rise in teenage smoking, or the
phenomenon of word of mouth, or any number of
the other mysterious changes that mark
everyday life is to think of them as epidemics.
Ideas and products and messages and behaviors
spread just like viruses do.”
Hush Puppies

Old-men’s shoes?

Once a very popular brand known for their
comfortable “loafers”



By 1994, it looked like Hush Puppies were a thing of
the past
Only 30,000 pairs sold annually


Brush-suede shoes
Mostly to backwoods outlets and small town family
stores
The Wolverine Company was ready to discontinue
the line after almost 30 years of production
Then something happened…
Hush-Puppies “Tipped”

Two Hush Puppy executives learned that
Hush Puppies had suddenly become “hip”
and “cool” in Manhattan Night-clubs


The shoes were being bought in thrift stores
in the Village and SOHO and becoming hard
to find
Why would such unfashionable shoes
suddenly become fashionable?
Hush-Puppies “Tipped”


By 1995, Fashion Designers wanted to
use Hush Puppies in their upcoming
fashion shows
A Los Angeles designer put a 25-foot
Bassett-Hound on the roof of his
Hollywood store and gutted an adjacent
art gallery to turn it into a “Hush Puppy”
boutique
Hush-Puppies “Tipped”

Sales went from 30,000 pair in 1994 to
430,000 pairs in 1995

Over 1.5 million pairs were sold in 1996

By 1996 Hush Puppies had become a
staple of the wardrobe of the Young
American male

Hush Puppies had “tipped”
Why did Hush Puppies tip?

Company executives were baffled


They had initially done nothing to promote the
brand
A small group of kids in the East Village
had decided to wear them


Not to promote them, BUT because they were
SO unfashionable NO ONE else would wear
them
Word spread entirely from word-of-mouth
Hush Puppies..

Then a small group of fashion
designers used them to peddle
“Haute Couture”

No one tried to make Hush
Puppies a trend, but they did
Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point

The story of Hush Puppies illustrates the
central argument of Malcolm Gladwell’s
book The Tipping Point: How Little
Things Can Make a Big Difference

Gladwell argues that to understand the
phenomena of new trends, you should
study them as “social epidemics”
Social Epidemics

The rise of Hush Puppies is a text-book
example of an epidemic in action


Contagious behavior
No one said Hush Puppies were “cool”


Those kids just started wearing them as a
rebellious statement of counter-culture
In doing so they “exposed” others and
“infected” them with the “Hush Puppy virus”
Three Characteristics of an Epidemic




Contagiousness
Little Causes with Big Effects
Change that happens not gradually but at
one dramatic moment
This is exactly how a virus spreads


The same principles behind the spread of
measles in a second-grade classroom
Or the winter flu
The Tipping Point
Small changes can have big effects

The law of the few -- individual actions can be amplified
by social connections, energy, enthusiasm and personality



Connectors – those who know lots of people…social glue
Mavens – those who accumulate knowledge…data banks
Salesmen – those with skills to persuade…persuaders

The stickiness factor-- simple changes in the presentation
and structuring of information can make a big difference in
its impact

The power of context -- individual behavior is markedly
affected by the environment
The Tipping Point

The possibility of sudden change is at the
center of the idea of the tipping point

We can define the tipping point as the moment
of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point

The term first came into use in the 1970s to
describe residential segregation caused by the
flight of whites to the suburbs from old American
cities

When the number of African Americans moving in
to the neighborhood reached 20% the population
“tipped” and whites fled
The Tipping Point

Every new technology has a tipping
point

1984: First low-cost Fax Machines
introduced


Sales grew slowly but steadily until 1987, when
enough people had faxes that it made sense for
EVERYONE to have a fax -- 1987 was the tipping
point
Cell Phones got smaller, cheaper, and
service improved through the 1990s

When they tipped in 1998 and everyone had a cell
phone
Role Models in a Community

Sociologists have looked at the number of role
models in a community




Professionals, managers, teachers – “High Status”
workers
In neighborhoods with 5 – 40% high status workers,
there is little change in pregnancy rates, school dropout rates
Go below 5% and problems explode

Go from 5.6% to 3.4% and drop-out rates double

Its not slow gradual change, but dramatic and
substantial
The Tipping Point was at 5%