Imani

Imani


 * Essential Question: What is the importance of a single event? How can analyzing events or individuals impact decisions made today?**

__**Summary Chapters 1 and 2**__ The intro gave a concrete definition of what the tipping point was and gave examples of different tipping points. For instance the comeback of Hush Puppies, an extreme decrease in crime in New York the Syphilis outbreak in Baltimore, are all examples of tipping points. Chapter 1 went more into depth about the nature of a tipping point and what elements were needed it introduced the concept of an epidemic. Epidemics such as the word of mouth epidemic, it is a movement so powerful it was able to save the majority of Americans from the attack of the British on Lexington and Concord. A stable boy told Paul Revere, who told someone, who told someone, who told someone else that the British were coming. The message spread like wildfire and that is the sensation of word of mouth. He also introduced the Power of Context, the Stickiness Factor, and the Law of the Few, the three concepts involved in epidemics. Chapter Two discussed the people who cause epidemics and tipping points. According to Gladwell there are three types of people involved in a tipping point, Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen. The Connectors are the people who know everyone and can start a word of moth epidemic easily simply by suggesting a restaurant for example. Paul Revere was a Connector. Mavens are like the stable boy they are the reliable sources who tell the connectors about the restaurant. They are the type of people who help others simply because they want to. the accumulate knowledge and are always resourceful and correct. The Salesman is the person that can convince anyone to buy anything. They have the uncanny ability to convince anyone to buy anything. It is a true gift as are all these concepts.

Discussion for Chapters 1 and 2 - The stickiness factor is still very relevant today - The power of Context (people are less likely to help when they think other people are there) - Weather can make a little change and a big difference 32 degrees to 33 - Salesmen have to have a true desire to sell and be friendly about it persuasive - Emily is Tom Gao! the type of person who has the ability to affect the emotions of people all around them - ABC Peter Jennings affected vote for Regan because he smiled every time he said his name. Increased votes by 71 percent.

__**Summary Chapter 3**__ Chapter Three talked all about the Stickiness Factor, the part of an advertisement that makes people remember the product. In our first group meeting we recalled a number of theme songs and catchy jingles from T.V. Those are the sticky elements of an ad or a T.V. show. Often times commercials come on and people tune out. Yet, when a cute little song is incorporated the television seems to win back their attention. These short memorable songs are incorporated with the most important part of the message; the part the company wants to stick! The phone numbers for places such as Stanley Steamers or Empire Today are forever burned in my brain because I remember the song at the end of the commercial. If the consumer remembers the phone number or the phrase directors have successfully completed their job of making to product stick in the minds of the customer. The chapter described an experiment in which two groups of college students were given pamphlets informing them of the dangers of tetanus and providing the vital information that tetanus shots were being given at the health clinic on campus. While both of the groups were informed about the disease using different methods, there was still only about three percent who actually got the tetanus shot that was being offered. However, when the experiment was conducted again researchers realized that they needed a "sticky factor". A map to the health clinic and a schedule of the times shots were being given was included in the pamphlet and the percentage increased by 25%. That is the magic of the stickiness factor! The chapter also examined the success of the popular children's shows Sesame Street and Blue’s Clues. Both of these shows tried to do the impossible and use television as a learning tool for toddlers. Before Sesame Street educational T.V. was unheard of because it was thought impossible for children to be able to remember or even comprehend anything they saw on TV. However the real issue was that there was no sticky component. Once characters such as Big Bird and Blue were involved children began to pay more attention. Blue’s Clues took the stickiness aspect one step further adding repetition to help the message stay in the children’s minds. Blue’s Clues repeated the same show every day for a week much to the disapproval of Nickelodeon producers. However, the repetition worked and Blue’s Clues was a hit and the children were actually remembering the things they learned while watching the program. The show also took steps to engage the audience. Steve, the narrator of Blue’s Clues would take a longer pause than needed after asking a question allowing the kids to answer back and actually be engaged in the show. This chapter showed the key components of the stickiness factor, were controlling the audience’s interest level, repetition, and engaging the audience. These little things such as adding a schedule, or a tune to a slogan, or pausing just a little too long after a question made and enormous difference in the number of students who got tetanus shots, or the number of people who remember the number to Stanley Steamers, or the number of preschoolers who understand that the letter C, A, and T make a word. A great deal of research and analysis went into creating Blue’s Clues and Sesame Street. Due to that analysis we now had, and have shows like Barney, or Dora.

__Passage Master Chapter Three__ Pg. 92 "...messengers are what make something spread. But the content of the message matters too." The message has to be sticky for it to start a "word of mouth epidemic." The importance of the Stickiness factor.

Pg. 96- Pg. 98 relates to the essential question how something little can make such a big difference. The inclusion of a schedule and a map increased percentage of students who got the shot by 25%. Showed them "how to fit the tetanus stuff into their lives.

Pg 102- ANALYSIS! makes a big difference. They went through many tests for Sesame Street and concluded that if kids were not interested they would not watch and therefore wouldn't learn.

Pg. 109- shows how much work goes into that one little thing thta makes a world of difference. (with Grover)

Pg 131. "But a small change is often what it takes" This is a quote that deals with our essential question!!!!

__**Summary chapter 4**__ Chapter 4 discussed the affects situations have on our behaviors. Gladwell began with the story of Bernie Goetz a New Yorker who shot four thugs demanding five dollars on the subway. While many people will look at the situation and conclude that Goetz shot these four young men due to his past traumatic experiences, according to Gladwell they would be utterly and completely wrong in thinking this. The reason for Goetz drawing his pistol is very much related to our essential question. Goetz brief moment of savage behavior was caused by something as small as the graffiti on the walls of the subway and the people fare-beating just outside the car. Gladwell says that people make a common mistake known as Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE) meaning that people generally base actions on character traits rather than the actual motivator, the situation, environment, or context. Gladwell talked about how a simple assessment of the situation could drastically change a society. For example, the drop of the New York crime rate. William Bratton, at the time head of Transit Police, was hired when there was a large period of rebuilding the subway system. Bratton went against the beliefs of others and decided to paint over and scrub off the graffiti on the subways. Many people objected thinking it wouldn't make a difference but it made a great difference. Eventually the kids drawing the graffiti found it pointless to continue if all their work was to be painted over the next morning. Bratton applied the same tactics to people who were fare-beaters he increased police enforcement and soon fare-beaters were being taken to jail. Bratton used the same tactics above ground, fixing smaller problems that were generally viewed as insignificant. However, fixing these "small problems" caused all the whole of New York's crime rate to drop. The fact that that people were suddenly being sent to jail for peeing on the street sen the message that punishment for larger scale crimes would have more severe consequences. Bratton simply enforced laws that had been forgotten and eventually made New Yorks crime rate drop severely truly showing how small elements can have such a large impact.

__Passage Master chapters 3-4__ Pg 135. shooting in subway caused a spark that sent the New York crime rate in to epidemic proportions. shows how little things make big change in a negative way

Pg. 141 broken window theory shows the message of the chapter that if we allow a window to stay broken people will think no one cares and eventually the other windows will get broken.

Pg 144 addresses the essential question directly "... a small expression of disorder that invited much more serious crimes."

Pg 146 this quote talks about the essential question and communicates the message of this particular chapter it expresses that the fact that people could get away with the little crimes was the tipping point for the big crimes. "Minor, seemingly insignificant quality-of-life crimes, they said, were tipping points for violent crimes.

Pg. 160 FAE talks about the common mistake people make in thinking character influences action and not the situation.

Pg. 165. shows again how something little like saying "Oh, you're late" changed the way people would normally react to a situation.

__**Summary Chapters 5 and 6**__ In chapter 5 Gladwell introduces the fact that the amount of people that are involved in a situation influences. He used the book //Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood// as an example//.// The book was obviously a good book to have done so successful but the tipping point occurred largely because of the number of people who read the book.The author distinctly remembers the tipping point as a book singing in which 700 to 800 people attended. This tied into the rule of 150. Psychologists say the humans have a mental capacity of 150 meaning that once a group exceeds 150 members problems start to occur. In this instance group is defined as a group of hunter gathers in previous days or an office building today. This rule is applied in the military fighting units. They don't allow the fighting units to get larger than 200 men. They have found that once the number of soldiers exceeds 200 men it gets increasingly harder for the soldiers to form the relationship necessary to fight well together. The chapter also used the successful company Gore-Tech as an example. They split each section of the company into groups of 150. With this arrangement, similar to the soldiers, it is easier for the employees to form a bond. By forming that bond they also come to understand each others strengths and weaknesses and can call on different people for different jobs therefore making the company stronger.Gore-Tech ifs a prime example of the rule of 150 and our essential question. They will not allow their each section of the company to go over 150 people, proving that they believe having just one person could tip the entire section in a way they do not desire to go. Although it may not necessarily be true that just one person will tip the whole business it still would not take many people to tip it. Chapter 6 talked again about the importance of Mavens, Salesmen, and Connectors in tipping a product such as a fashion trend. Gladwell used the popular shoes //Airwalk// as an example. //Airwalk// was a shoe created specifically for skaters however //Airwalk// quickly became a shoe not only for skaters but for everyone.Gladwell examined why this happened and realized that it was again because of Mavens, Connectors, and Salesmen. In order to get //Airwalk// to appear to the masses the company needed to get the shoes to appeal to the trendsetters and the mainstream kids. Getting the shoe to appeal to the trendsetters was easy. They were constantly looking for something new and exciting to try. The challenge wold be making the main-streamers interested and this is where our three types of people came in. In spreading things like trends Mavens, Connectors, and Salesmen are required to spin the trend in such a way that it becomes appealing to everyone else. These three types of people are essential to a company such as //Airwalk// because they provide the advertisements. They observe what the trend setters do and then are able to twist it in a way that it is appealing to everyone. For instance, they observed that Tibetan minks were becoming a very popular trend among the trendsetters so they came up with a commercial that showed a Tibetan monk wearing //Airwalks// and using them to cheat on a test. By the time the shoe comes out the trend has already caught on and the shoes become very successful because of the timing and largely due to how attractive the advertising is. A section that included our essential question in some way didn't occur until the end. When //Airwalk// finally did dwindle it was because of one event. They stopped selling the very more exclusive shoes to strictly skate shops and started selling them to everyone. This made the shoes easier to obtain and the trendsetters lost interest in the product and caused all the other consumers to lose interest too.

Researcher:

This is a link for a book club discussion of Ya-Ya Sisterhood. Book groups are what Gladwell and the author felt made this book so successful. One group talked to another group who talked to another group and eventually the book began to spread.

http://bestsellers.about.com/od/bookclubquestions/a/divine_secrets.htm

Tennis shoes made out of tennis ball material: There were a type of shoe made out of tennis ball material by Airwalk. This is by a different distributor but still uses the same strategy of using odd or eccentric things to make a piece of clothing makes it more attractive to the trendsetters.

http://www.coolhunting.com/images/Alife_Pump.jpg

This is the you tube link to a commercial for Airwalk. They used the things kids thought were funny. While some would consider the commercial crude our generation typically thinks that type of advertising is funny.

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Chapter 7 examined the importance of the Salesmen in "epidemics" such as teen smoking, and teen suicide in Micronesia. Gladwell researched the spike in suicides in Micronesia in the 80's to find out what caused the spike. In other words, what was the tipping point? Gladwell found that essentially it was a Salesman like person who tipped it forcing it into an epidemic. A man, known in the book as R., committed suicide because he found himself torn between his two lovers. Soon after R.'s suicide another young man killed himself due to marital problems. It was reported that after R. died many young men saw him calling to them in their dreams. He was asking them to join him and commit suicide as well. In the next 12 years the island of Micronesia suffered from 25 more suicides. R. was the tipping point for this suicide epidemic. He made it seem OK to other young men on the island. There were probably a number of men who looked up to R. and found it noble when he took his life. R. made suicide seem "cool" for those young men and that is exactly what a Salesman does. A Salesman can take something you have absolutely no use for and sell it to you without any hassle. Salesmen make the unappealing things in life appealing. Salesmen also have a large effect on the rising epidemic teen smoking. When Gladwell conducted a poll asking people to describe their 'earliest experience with cigarettes'. When the results came in Gladwell noticed that most of the answers had something in common. The people who began smoking at a young age did it because they saw someone that they thought was cool smoking. From this Gladwell came to the conclusion that " Smoking was never cool. //Smokers// are cool". Those 'cool people' who smoke are the same as R. or any other Salesman. They can make a disgusting, unhealthy, life-threatening product appealing to everyone simply by being themselves and using it.
 * __Summary Chapter 7__**

Essential Question: The essential question was addressed, in this chapter, through people like R. It explained the importance of a Salesman in the Tipping Point. The Salesman is just that, a man. Yet that one man has the inexplicable ability to make anything alluring. R. raised the suicide rate in Micronesia substantially. This proved that not only can one event cause a tipping point but one person can as well. I doubt the suicide rate would have increased that much if someone other than R. had been the one to commit suicide. However, it all depends on how influential that person is. That Salesman also has to be somewhat of a Connector to be influential enough to have people look up to them. Scientists and doctors analyzing this data have to be able to identify what is so cool about people like R. and counter act it. If it were possible for them to counteract it and make those 'cool people' seem boring they could fix problems like teen smoking or rising suicide rates. However, that is a very difficult task to accomplish, and yet, the analysis of these two subjects has helped doctors and scientist today. They are now aware of what and who makes these subjects so popular. They can now, at least, begin finding ways to stop it.

Connector: - There have been a number of suicide instances because of social networks.All of us are involved in a social network in some way and this applies to us. Now we have to be cautious of what we say because there is the constant threat of suicide - Smoking has become such a huge issue so many people in our community smoke we are around it constantly and this gave some insight as to why it might be like this. - We had the talk about depression at school and often times that's a cause of suicide. suicide has become increasingly more common in our lives

__**Summary Chapter 8**__

Chapter 8 was essentially a summary of the whole book. it reiterated the importance of Mavens, Connectors, and Salesmen. They seem to be the most important factor in the tipping point it was addressed several times throughout the book, much more than any other example. However, there were other causes of a tipping point such as the power of context, and the stickiness factors. But both connected back to those three people in some way. People are essentially the tipping point. Those three important people, Mavens, Connectors, and Salesmen, are the cause for most significant tipping points. For instance, Paul Revere was a connector and that's why his midnight ride was so successful. R, the young man that committed suicide, was a bit of a connector as well, and because of that so many young boys followed his example. The advertising team and Airwalk had to be mavens in order to know how to appeal to the public. What I gathered from this book was that people are far more powerful than they think and if they recognized their potential and impact the world would be a very different place.

Essential Question: The book really embodied the essential question. There were examples in each chapter of how a small event could have evoke such a big change. In life often times we speed through ignoring the little things. This book magnifies the little things and shows us how important they really are. An overwhelming new-found interest in a particular shoe in New York or a suicide epidemic in Micronesia, both these big events occurred because of one small change or a change form one person. This book not only makes readers slow down to observe the less significant things in life but also informs them of the power they posses. Many of the changes in this book took place because of a specific person. This proves the disputed point that, one person can make a difference. Analyzing and researching past tipping points and their factors is greatly helpful for today, especially for advertisers. Because of the analysis done on this subject advertisers now have an example of what works and doesn't work and how people respond to different things. This knowledge is tremendously helpful in the fact that they now know how the present something so that the product is well received. This book is enjoyable and educational. It gives the reader insight into the mind of the common man and helps them to understand their self more as well.

Discussion Director - what do you think is the most influential factor in a tipping point? - What was your favorite chapter and why? - Based in how you enjoyed this book would read his other books? - How has this book affected the way you look at life now? - Whats the most memorable tipping point you've ever experienced? - Are you more aware of tipping points after reading this book?