The Tipping Point

I finished reading "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell the other day. Once again Gladwell wrote a wonderful book that makes you think. I had really enjoyed "Blink" and hoped that "The Tipping Point" would be as enjoyable. It was and it changed the way I thought about some things.

The main thing the book gave me was a wonderful defense of Capitalism when I read something like I read in the comments section of Drum's blog (I can't find the link now so I'm paraphrasing): "What Republicans don't understand is I don't want to negotiate the best deal for electricity, I want to flip on the light switch and have my lights come on. I don't want to go through some hassle to do it." Sentiments like this are completely understandable because I'm the same way. Gladwell, while not specifically addressing this in my terms, refutes the notion that everyone has to negotiate the best deal in everything they buy. Instead, Gladwell writes, there are people who he calls 'mavens' that love to find the best deals, negotiate for prices, etc.. He wrote the story of a college professor in Texas that was a maven. One of his students came up to him around the holidays and asked him where the best place would be to buy a ham. To this question the professor asked "You know I'm Jewish, right?" The questioner indicated that he knew the professor was Jewish and the professor said "go to so and so deli, ask for this kind of ham with this kind of seasoning, it should cost this amount of money." My wife is like that, she knows where to buy everything and at what price to buy it.

Gladwell also writes of the two other types of people that make Capitalism work, connectors and salesmen. Salesmen are fairly self explanatory. Connectors are people who know a lot of people. I know several people that are connectors but the one that comes to mind is Rick Sutcliffe, baseball broadcaster and ex-Cubs pitcher. He lives in the Kansas City area and is sports radio quite a bit. He knows everybody and has a story about everyone. It's great to listen to him broadcast a baseball game because he tells stories all the time that are relevant to the game at hand or to illuminate a player's personal interest story. Connectors, as well as salesmen, are integral to the Tipping Point because they are the ones that get the word out about a fad. Lots of things are popular in all kinds of subcultures. Connectors are the ones that let the rest of the world in on them, whether it be a great restaurant or a really great pair of shoes. A maven working with a connector can really broadcast the best cell phone service to get, for instance, so that people like me don't really have to get the information from every service and compare and try to figure out the best one.

That's why Capitalism works. Businesses try to cater their offers to mavens and communicate to connectors through salesmen. When this works you get a successful product or service, when it doesn't the product or service is improved until it's as good as it can be. I'm simplifying the message of course, and it is not necessarily the message Gladwell probably intended, but it's what I took away from it. I gave the book 5 stars on Amazon.

Next up is "Our School" by Joanne Jacobs. I've already started it and so far it's been great. The book is a true story about a charter school in San Jose, CA that takes in failing Hispanic students from regular public schools and gives them college prep classes. The school, Downtown College Prep, gives the students motivation to go to college, the tools to learn effectively and works their tail off to catch them up and qualify for college. Hat tip to Kevin Drum for recommending the book