《The Tipping Point》Reflection

In “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell, one of the major theme is epidemic, he shows this by using a lot of examples, and there are three main factors supporting epidemic, they are some connective personages, the importance of particulars and the environmental effects respectively. 



While the most important part to create popular is the connective people, this chapter called “the law of the few”, that means few special people can make a big difference, and they are the main factor to make popular. There are three types named “connectors”, “mavens” and “salesmen”, they connect promulgators to normal people, and they use their reputation to popularize things. Because connectors own higher social intelligence, they are good at connect people and find more possibility between them, besides connectors are some popular people who have a viral competence to showcase and advertise new products. Mavens collect information more initiative, and they are willing to help people, therefore they spread information more efficiently . If we regard mavens as database that provide information to people, and connectors as adhesive to connect people; in that way the salesmen are people who own better persuasion, and they have stronger emotional appeal that can convince other to accept new ideas. These three roles like the bridge that can transform professional ideas to the language that can easy be accepted by average person.

In my opinion, I think “the law of the few” is amazing, because these three people can make a epidemic spread only by word of their mouths. It is always happen in our really life, for instance, we all went through the high school, it is the place which full of gossip, but how can these gossip become well know? I think the first reason is there are some popular students, and they are famous at school; maybe they are good at making friends, maybe they had performances in front of the whole school, anyway, everyone knows them. Therefore, they form a small group gradually. Then because they are students, so they have a lot of time, that is why they always can get information everywhere. Last, because of boring, they like talk about others, therefore they are the best mavens, and some curious students are connectors and salesmen, they spread what they saw and what they heard, and they talk about them all the time, finally, it become well-known information, that called gossip, because no one can tell it is true or false. 

Moreover, I want to explain this law by the other example. There are many social networks appear in this day and age, such as twitter, while this one become popular because of star effect, because famous stars satisfy connectors, mavens and salesmen at the same time, therefore, it catch on in very short time. Now,everyone has a twitter now. 


In conclusion, every popular event has a tipping point, the key is have few connectors in the right environment, and that event must own some value, if this event has these three factors, it will cause an epidemic.