“The Tipping Point”
I am currently reading “The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
- we need to exemplify the (social, behavioral, ethical etc.) changes we wish to see in the world,
- small changes in our behaviour might produce significant result,
- changes we exemplify might be scalable in their influence, reaching well beyond our individual area of influence, and
- in order to develop the character traits we desire, we need to exemplify them.
In “The Tipping Point“, Malcolm Gladwell likens certain social patterns to the progression of an epidemic or, more specifically, a geometric increase in an epidemic once it reaches a Critical Mass, or the “Tipping Point“. Perhaps the best example for my purposes is the case of “Hush Puppies”, as taken from “The Tipping Point” (below).
For Hush Puppies – the classic American brushed-suede shoes with lightweight crepe sole – the Tipping Point came somewhere between late 1994 and early 1995. The brand had been all but dead until that point. Sales were down to 30,000 pairs a year, mostly to backwoods outlets and small-town family stores. Wolverine, the company that makes Hush Puppies, was thinking of phasing out the shoes that made them famous. But then something strange happened. At a fashion shoot, two Hush Puppies executives – Owen Baxter and Geoffrey Lewis – ran into a stylist from New York who told them that the Vlasic Hush Puppies had suddenly become hip in the clubs and bars of downtown Manhattan. “We were being told,” Baxter recalls, “that there were resale shops in the Village, in Soho, where the shoes were being sold. People were going to the Ma and Pa stores, the little stores that still carried them, and buying them up.” Baxter and Lewis were baffled at first. It made no sense to them that shoes that were so obviously out of fashion could make a comeback. …
By the fall of 1995, things began to happen in a rush. First the designer John Bartlett called. He wanted to use Hush Puppies in his spring collection. Then another Manhattan designer, Anna Sui, called, wanting shoes for her show as well. In Los Angeles, the designer Joel Fitzgerald put a twenty-five-foot inflatable basset hound – the symbol of the Hush Puppies brand – on the roof of his Hollywood store and gutted an adjoining art gallery to turn it into a Hush Puppies boutique. While he was still painting and putting up shelves, the actor Pee-wee Herman walked in and asked for a couple of pairs. “It was total word of mouth,” Fitzgerald remembers.
In 1995, the company sold 430,000 pairs of the classic Hush Puppies, and the next year it sold four times that, and the year after that still more, until Hush Puppies were once again a staple in the wardrobe of the young American male …
Hush Puppies had suddenly exploded, and it all started with a handful of kids in the East Village and Soho”.
In a similar manner, Gladwell reports the conclusions of John Potterat with regard to an outbreak of gonorrhea in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Potterat found that
“… about half the cases came, essentially from four neighborhoods representing about 6 percent of the geographic area of the city. Half of those in that 6 percent, in turn, were socializing in the same six bars.
… The ones causing the epidemic to grow – the ones who were infecting two and three and four and five others with their disease – were the remaining 168. In other words, in all of the city of Colorado Springs – a town of well in excess of 100,000 people – the epidemic of gonorrhea tipped because of the activities of 168 people living in four small neighborhoods and basically frequenting the same six bars.”
Later in the book, Gladwell states:
“But the Power of Context says that what really matters is little things. … that you don’t have to solve the big problems to solve crime. You can prevent crimes just by scrubbing off graffiti and arresting fare-beaters: crime epidemics have Tipping Points every bit as simple and straightforward as syphilis in Baltimore or a fashion trend like Hush Puppies.”
In my two previous articles, I was arguing for the possibility of an individual (or small group) effecting widespread (to, potentially, global) change simply by exemplifying the change desired and (using fractal and chaos theory, specifically, scalability) suggested such change might manifest at a larger scale. “The Tipping Point” appears to be making the same (or similar) argument from the perspective of the characteristics and progression of an epidemic. In Internet Marketing, this concept is referred to as “Going Viral”, in which the message or product suddenly explodes with interest and a dramatic increase in traffic.
The message for the individual is, therefore, that rather than arguing for change, one should (to the extent possible) exemplify the desired change. Furthermore, the change desired is more likely in the appropriate environmental context.
I recognize the fact that the following paragraph is naively idealistic, however, bear with me.
As an example, if one were living in a crime ridden neighborhood (modelling an example from “The Tipping Point”), one might make an effort to keep ones yard maintained, repair broken windows on the property and aggressively paint over or otherwise remove graffiti. By setting such an example, one’s neighbours might similarly address these same issues on their properties and the example might spread throughout the neighbourhood. By demonstrating care and attention to one’s property and, by extension, to one’s neighbours, the “criminal element” would recognize the heightened attention to the neighbourhood’s private property and conclude such attention extends to potential targets of opportunity.
Many individuals living in neighbourhoods characterized by a high crime rate do maintain their properties and draw a heightened level of vandalism as a result. I suggest this may be a direct result of the threat posed to the “criminal element” by such care and attention. The individual (or family) paying the extra attention to their property is also likely to pay extra attention to events in the neighbourhood.
The missing element in this scenario is “The Tipping Point” or, how to involve one’s neighbours in taking similar pride in their surroundings and paying attention to occurrences in the neighbourhood. Most criminals prefer to operate “Under the Radar”, undertaking their criminal activities well out of the public eye. So, if one were to act as the catalyst for such a change, there is a possibility that others in the hypothetical neighbourhood might be encouraged to change too. This is such a simple paragraph to write, however, the “possibility” so easily written would be difficult to realize. The encouraging thing is that such change has taken place, not once, but repeatedly. And not just at one location but at many different and widespread locations. Furthermore, such change has not simply been care and maintenance of a yard in a crime ridden neighbourhood but such humanitarian issues as Apartheid, Slavery, Women’s Suffrage and Racial Segregation. Another great example of a small group effecting significant change are the signatories to the American “Declaration of Independence”. The most visual memory I have is of the young student standing in front of the tank at Tienanmen Square. That protest was brutally suppressed but there has been change realized as a result (not, of course, to the extent desired).
Change has been, and will continue to be, realized due to the action of individuals and small groups. Some of these changes will be global in their significance and impact, while most will be limited to local spheres of influence. However, the empowering fact underlying this message is that any change must first be spoken and, ideally, exemplified by an individual (or small group).
What is the change you want to see in the world?
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