The Tipping Point

The Tipping point", How little things can make a big difference!

This statement heading is one which you will always remember after reading the book. Why? well its a book that once read, leaves you thinking about the "tipping points" in life and how you answer questions you never even thought about before. When you first look at the front cover "The international No1 bestseller" strikes you as quite a hard to live up to statement, how could any book that’s talks about the little things in life become such a well read and known piece of literature. Well ill tell you. Gladwell looks into how trends, ideas and social behaviour reaches such a point and spreads so quickly that causes it to tip, therefore resulting in the "Tipping point". He talks about different scenarios in everyday life and how each relates back to the small match on the front cover.

"The Law of the Few" chapter dives in to talking about the different kinds of people and their roles in society, The Mavens, Connectors and Salesmen! Gladwell goes on to talk about a very well known example, a man called Paul Revere! Now if I am being honest before i read the book i didn’t know much about Paul Revere, only that he had played a role in the American Revolution. Since reading this book it wasn’t just what he did, that we learn so much about, it is how being a "midnight rider" created a word of mouth epidemic. We find out that by him traveling at night his message appeared more urgent compared to William Dawes who was also instructed to spread the word and that his knack for networking and his engagement in gathering information about the British helped him succeed.

From reading "The Tipping Point" and using the mind map system as a technique to condense information, it has greatly improved my note taking skills and my ability to select certain important pieces of information, out from a large text. I think the exercise also gets you to concentrate and understand the text a lot quicker and helps me remember significant parts, while refreshing you of the content of the book. I feel overall the mind mapping way is less complicated way to take notes especially when reading a book like "The Tipping Point" where a lot of information has been given. By separating each heading and sub-headings helps to clarify the content that needs to be separated. It has greatly helped me involve myself more with the book and think about the overall message.