Anne

Anne

Summary Introduction, Chapter 1, and Chapter 2

In the intro and in the first two chapters it talks about the meaning of the words tipping point. The Tipping Point is "the level at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable." It talks about how the tipping point can be created by mainly by word of mouth. But it also occurs because of three main factors. The factors are, the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context. In order for there to be a tipping point there needs to be an epidemic. Examples they use in the book are, Hush Puppies (shoes), the crime rate in New York, the spread of syphilis, and Paul Reveres communication that the British are coming. The author,Malcolm Gladwell also talks about the three types of people who can start and/ or continue epidemics. The first is a connector. A connector knows everyone, has a high job, can connect to a lot of people. A maven means, one who accumulates knowledge, they also want to help everyone and give them useful information, like Mark Alpert, who tells friends and others which type of car they should drive, or don't be tricked by grocery stores "low prices." The third type of person is a salesperson, who doesn't care much about the buyers, they just want to sell. Another main topic would be the Six Degrees of Separation. People are on average are linked to others by around 6 others, which was really interesting to find out.

Passage Master

1. pg. 13 last paragraph I picked this because this showed that just a little change in the weather, couple degrees cooler, that it can go from rain to snow. 2. pg. 25 continued paragraph I chose this because this passage shows the importance that such a little thing as a name of something, can make an item so popular 3. pg. 28 last/ second paragraph I chose this because this struck me and as i thought about it, i was agreeing 100% with this. If something bad was happening, like the example in the book, if a lady was being assaulted in front of multiple people, she would likely die because no one would call for help. But you would call if you were by yourself. Having other people around gets you thinking, //I'm sure someone else has called or will call the police, ill leave it to them.// 4. pg. 39-40 The big paragraph with all of the last names I picked this because i got around 70 people for my list of people i know, which was so surprising, I would have never of guessed that i would know that many people from a list like that. Also in the book, it talks about certain types of people and why they would know as many people from that last as they do. (Go into examples in class) 5. MARK ALPERT IS AWESOME!! his whole section It amazes me how he knows so much about everything, and how he chooses to help people know and understand the information that he knows. He knows what is good for people, what they should buy from groceries to a new car.

Summary Chapters 3 and 4

Chapter 3 was about "he stickiness factor." This refers to a unique quality that compels the phenomenon to “stick” in the minds of the public and influence a person's behavior. One example of the stickiness factor was the tetanus shots. This test was among college students at Columbia and NYU. There were two groups of students. One group received packeted with high fear information and detailed pictures on it while the other group recieved a packet with not scary information and no pictures. Only a small percentage went to get the shot, but when the test was done again, they put in a map to where the office to get the shots were, and that showed to be more affective, evern though most the students already knew where the office was. Another example is the PBS show Sesame Street. It represented a vast improvement in the “stickiness” of children’s television, because it turned many tong time assumptions about children’s cognitive abilities. If the TV show isn't "sticky" enough, the show will be canceled, which shows the importance of a single event. These changes, showed it help toddlers literacy skills.Years later, the television show Blue’s Clues applied many of the same techniques that Sesame Street used, resulting in the development of a program that research has shown can generate significant improvements in children’s logic and reasoning abilities. In chapter 4, it discussed the power of context. If the environment or historical moment in which a trend is introduced is not right, it is not as likely that the tipping point will be attained. An example for the power of context is the rapid decline in violent crime rates in the 1990s in New York City. Gladwell also discusses that it was a few small but influential changes in the environment of the city that allowed the factors to tip into a major reduction in crime. To reverse the high crime rates, the city authorities focused on seemingly small goals like painting over graffiti, cracking down on subway toll skippers, and dissuading public acts of degeneracy. This reverse events that are happening are affecting the outcome and the change of the crime rate. Gladwell contends that these changes in the environment allowed the other factors, like the decline in crack cocaine use and the aging of the population, to gradually tip into a major decline in the crime rate in the city.

Connector

When I was little I used to watch //Blue's Clues, Sesame Street,// and //Barney.// For my birthday one year I actually got a video with me in an episode of //Barney//, cartoon of course. I use to watch those shows so much, I STILL remember the theme song for //Barney,// ALL of the characters in //Sesame Steet// as well as in //Blue's Clues.// In our society, there is a lot of violence going on.The link below shows the crime rates and statistics for 2010. These crimes that were described in the book also remind me of the show, //The World's Dumbest Criminals// because []

Summary Chapters 5 and 6

In chapter 5 Malcolm Gladwell says that in order for a trend to "tip" large amounts of people need to participate and be apart of it, and that depending on the group that chooses to embrace the trend, depending on their size or type. A large part that is talked about in the fifth chapter is the book, //Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.// It talked about how many of those books were sold, whether being hardback, then to paperback. //The Tipping Point// also talked about how that book started as a "regional cult favorite to national best-seller" book in a matter of a couple years.This book started with groups of middle aged women in Northern California, and they would tell their friends, because they felt they could relate to the book. Also in this chapter, Gladwell talks about the unusual properties tied to the size of social groups. The title of this chapter is called, //The Magic Number One Hundred Fifty.// Groups of less than 150 members usually display a level of intimacy and interdependency that begins to dissipate as soon as the group’s size increases over 150. It says that people only have strong caring feelings for at most 150 people. If someone in that died, you would be mortified. But if it was someone you know, but wasn't in your top 150, then you wouldn't have those types of feelings for them, and you wouldn't be as sad of they died. This 150 concept has been used by many corporations, such as the Gore-Tex. It is used as the foundation of their organizational structures and marketing campaigns. In chapter 6, Gladwell discusses the rise and decline of Airwalk shoes.The brand was originally geared towards the skateboarding teenagers of Southern California, but then they creators and designers of these shoes wanted to expand their horizons so they decided to do different things with the shoes to get a wider culture of buyers and wearers.They succeeded with the help of their advertising agency who understand the factors and variables that influence the public’s view of what's cool. The marketing campaign used the idea of Tibetan Buddhism, pachuco gang culture, where the girls in an area of California were wearing wife beaters and dressing like "gangstas", and preppy culture. Having this wide variety of shoe types, allowed a wider variety of people to wear these shoes. The Airwalk shoes were no longer just for skateboarding, they made shoes now for surfers and hikers...etc. Now with the like of a wider group of people the Airwalk shoes became very popular. The company also came up with the idea of having the better shoes sold at smaller stores. The company’s unique strategy of offering unique products to boutique stores and a more mainstream shoe selection to department stores had long kept both cutting-edge hipsters and their more mainstream, impressionable counterparts content. But trying to lower their cost, Airwalk eventually began providing all of its distributors with a single line of shoes. The public did not like this, and this caused the like of Airwalks to go down.The importance of a single event is that it can change so much. For example the Airwalk company deciding to have only one line of shoes for both boutiques and i the mainstream hurt them and their product plummeted. Because of this one change of event, their company suffered big time, ad lost a lot of their buyers. Analyzing an event or individual can impact decisions made to today because of we look back on the event of the Airwalk company's decision and they fell, companies now, especially companies for shoes, they might not make that same mistake, they might have multiple lines of shoes, which would keep the buyers happy, and it will keep them in business and be very popular.

Research http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number - This cite explains the magic number of 150 more, it talks about the founder of it, Dunbar, the background which led to this magical number, and other possible numbers. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119518271549595364.html - Another cite for the magic of the number 150. This is an article on Dunbar and it relates it to the number of people's friends on facebook and myspace. http://www.religionfacts.com/buddhism/sects/tibetan.htm - This is a cite on Tibetan Buddhism, i didn't know anything about this religion so i checked it out. this cite tells their beliefs and the background of it. Another reason i looked this up is because for the advertisement for the airwalk shoes, they used the Tibetan monk a lot, which caused a lot of controversy.

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In chapter 7, Gladwell brings discusses the relationship of the sudden rise in suicide rates of young males in Micronesia and the issue off teen’s cigarette use in the United States. The chapter starts off with a story of Sima, a Micronesian boy who committed suicide after his father rebuked him for forgetting to bring home a knife for the family business. The suicide rates there have become scary in amounts. There are many reasons why young men there commit suicide; it either being from a bad argument among their parents to seeing their girlfriend with another boy. And once the suicides have been made public, the suicide rate for the next couple of days increases as well. Also, since suicides are happening more often, there are boys, from the earliest age of 11, that want to experiment and see what it would be like, not planning on dying while hanging themselves. Gladwell proposes that first, teenagers are genetically predisposed to imitate others and try on new behaviors, such as suicide and smoking. And secondly, the types of people who are more likely to engage in romantic behavior are people who began to smoke at in early age, or commit suicide. Gladwell also considers the origins and implications of the curiously large middle ground that exists between those who abstain altogether from potentially dangerous activities, and others who engage in these activities at a low level. For cigarette users, the term “chipper” refers to a person who typically never smokes enough to become addictive. This chapter also talked about the failure of many anti-smoking campaigns which have been the focus on the cigarette. Gladwell points out those smokers know the risks of smoking, yet they continue to smoke. ======

Essential Question The importance of a single event in this case would be, the first event would be one of the young men committing suicide. This event that has occurred triggers something in other young men in that area, that it's okay to commit suicide. The happening of one event, causes more events like that to happen. Another example of how a single event is very important is that when one "cool" teenager starts smoking, other teenagers believe that since they are the cool ones, it is cool to smoke. So because that one teenager started to smoke, they caused others to start smoking which both suicide and smoking are very dangerous and bad things to do and follow from others doing so. By analyzing events or individuals, in this case the people who experimented suicide to see what it was really like, but not purposefully wanting to die, this will impact the decisions made by people who are thinking about "seeing what it's like" and hopefully they wont try. But by looking at the event of the individuals smoking, this won't really change their decisions on if they will smoke or not, like in the book, it says it depends halfway on your family and the other half is the factor of your surroundings and the friends you hang out with.

Discussion Director 1) Why do you think that once someone commits suicide, other people in that area are "seeing what it would be like" by trying, wouldn't they see how bad it is and not do it? 2) Why would people compare a suicide with the number of car accidents and the deaths within the car accidents together? What made them consider them linked to each other? 3) Why do you think the males are the one's who are committing suicide and not women in Micronesia, you would think the women have a harder life? 4) Why do you think a "chipper" is called a chipper? What is the significance? 5) Why do you think smokers are more likely to have young romantic behavior, and not non-smokers? oh la laaa

Summary Chapter 8

Chapter 8 first talked about a nurse names Georgia Sadler who had started a campaign for Breast Cancer and diabetes awareness within the black community in San Diego, California. She wanted to start a movement toward prevention and she set up seminars in black churches around the city (it was a little costly). She would hold the seminars after the church service and she would only have twenty or so people stay after there were hundreds at church for her awareness campaign. She then realizes that people get really tired and hungry after church, so they want to go home, and the people who actually stay are the one's who know stuff already about the diseases. She needed a new context, a new place to hold her seminars. Her focus was mainly on women, so she thought about where a good place would be where women are a lot. A hair salon!! This was a lost-cost way to raise breast cancer awareness. This reflects an understanding of the concept of the tipping point. In the salon environment, most people are relaxed and receptive to new information. Gladwell acknowledges that this as being a “band-aid” solution that treats symptoms, rather than underlying problems. These solutions are cumulative, low-key approaches that builds to a tipping point of massive popularity and influence.

Essential Question: What is the importance of a single event? How can analyzing events or individuals impact decisions made today? An example of the importance of a single event in this chapter would be when Georgia Sadler changed her venue of the Breast Cancer/ Diabetes seminar to the hair salon. This was a very smart move on her part. Having the seminar there, first of all, it was low cost because the women were already there getting their hair done, but like i said in the summary, while in a salon, most people are relaxed and are in a relaxing environment so they are more receptive to new information and will listen to what she has to say more.

Passage Master 1. p. 253-254 I choose this, well pretty much this little topic because this was a large part and contribution to the chapter, as well as interesting, it was about Georgia Sadler and her campaign. 2. p.256 last paragraph This is when they compare it to a Band-Aid. It talks about solving a problem with the least amount of effort put into it, as well as time and cost. That is everyone's instinctive thing to do. 3. p. 258 second paragraph I chose this because of the truth and the importance of what was said."Those who are successful at creating social epidemics do not just do what they think is right. They deliberately test their intuitions."