Post University
Michael Hallin
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell was a sensational and inspirational book. Gladwell makes you see how things can be pushed over the edge and blossom into fads, drops in crime rates or even outbreaks of diseases. The Tipping Point can happen at anytime within the right scenarios. Gladwell said “Look at the world around you. It may seem like an immovable, implacable place. It is not. With the slightest push — in just the right place — it can be tipped”. Gladwell did a lot of case studies to be able to make the claims that he did in his book. Malcolm Gladwell has been a journalist for many years, I didn’t realize how popular he was until I looked him up, and he brings the reader his perspective of how epidemics start [ (Gladwell, 2002) ]. Gladwell begins the book by discussing the elements necessary for an epidemic to take place. He does a good job explaining his point of view on the agent, the carrier and the environment. Gladwell is a great story teller and you are able to understand what he means about how certain circumstance can trigger an epidemic or a trend. The Tipping Point ingrained this scenario into my head, for Gladwell kept bringing it up. Hush Puppy shoes, read a couple of pages and low and behold Hush Puppy shoes came up again. Hush Puppies were about to go out of business in 1993 and then tipped to selling to 2,000,000 a year later. The manufacturers were in shock over the rise in sales, because they had done nothing different in regards to advertising. The reason that Hush Puppies made such a comeback was related to some trend setters in SoHo, New York. These trend setters started wearing Hush Puppies because they were not popular, but by them wearing these shoes they created a new fad. It also helped that some fashion designers used Hush Puppies on the runway, which Gladwell said was the tipping point for these shoes [ (Gladwell, 2002) ].
One of the other