the book club: New books dissected over e-mail.

The Tipping Point

the book club
entries

1 2 3 4 5 6

from: Edward Tenner

Fertile Ground

Posted Wednesday, March 15, 2000, at 1:43 PM ET

Dear John,

I understand how you feel about The Tipping Point. It appears as three books in one: general-interest social science, self-help, and public affairs. Perhaps it's a mark of the early stage of the research he is reporting. After all, not many economics writers try to pack theory, personal financial advice, and policy recommendations into the same book. And I do wish he would have conveyed more of the debate that's so important to all science. He sometimes brushes away objections, as though we could all give away our old copies of Samuelson to the Bryn Mawr Book Sale.

In fact, Gladwell overlooks the interest of many other social scientists in tipping points. Does competition among rival technologies, whether computer operating systems or tape formats, inevitably tip in favor of one competitor? And if so, does the best candidate win? The debate on the economics of QWERTY, the assertion that inferior keyboard arrangement somehow snowballed into hegemony, hinges on tipping. (The conventional arrangement, theoretically questionable, has held up amazingly well in impartial tests.) Will the Linux operating system--a meme if I ever saw one--tip into a permanent and substantial market share?

I share your misgivings about most inspirational books. But let's judge what Gladwell has written. I'd hate to make writers responsible for all the conclusions people might draw from their work. Actually, Gladwell's own examples show the practical limits of tipping-point theory. He makes the genuinely interesting point that one of the keys to the success of Sesame Street, the mixing of fantasy and reality, was opposed unanimously by the program's developmental psychology consultants but was loved by children, according to tests.

The kids won. But what can most people do with this story? The program had an enviable research budget that permitted sophisticated split testing with distracting material. It also had the superlative gifts of Jim Henson. Most of us never have a fraction of the money we need to find what sticks, or the team to make the final product memorable. And Gladwell never explores the question of why education is still such an issue if the program has given generations of kids a powerful head start. Could it (among other things) be the other side of its use of the rapid-fire syntax of commercials? Just what is sticking?

Or consider the rise and fall of the Airwalk sneaker, a campaign that took the cult footwear of California skateboarders and briefly made it into a national brand by studying and promoting to the tastes of youthful trendsetters. Airwalk executives believe their mistake was letting mass marketers have the same models they were selling to specialty stores, alienating the cool. But how long can any company sustain coolness? Even Nike throws dozens of new products into the market each season to see what will stick. Most new styles fail before anybody knows why. And youthful fashion--in brands as well as in styles--can change too fast to make research results useful.

Gladwell may be right that small things can make a big difference. But read his account of the New York subway cleanup again. It took a full six years, probably Sisyphean at times. (And vandals are now etching their messages into the glazing with sharp instruments, as though to mock the catchphrase "fixing broken windows.") And there may be another reason for the decline of street offenses: In the service economy, white-collar crime is safer and much more lucrative. Gladwell would have made an even stronger case by focusing on the extremely high cost of not taking early and firm action against the first graffiti wave. In fact, his observations on the importance of context in determining when students cheat could be cited by advocates of honor codes. They could argue that only rigid imperatives can prevent epidemics of situation-driven dishonesty.

I suspect we'll hear something from the scientists who are cited here--and the references make an excellent reading list. Is it a bug or a feature that there's so much to debate here? I can argue. I just can't get upset.

Best wishes,
Ed

the book club
entries

1 2 3 4 5 6

from: Edward Tenner

Fertile Ground

Posted Wednesday, March 15, 2000, at 1:43 PM ET

DISCUSS

E-MAIL

This week, a discussion of Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point (click hereto buy the book; click hereto read an excerpt). Edward Tenner is a visiting researcher in the Princeton Department of Geosciences and the author of Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences (click hereto buy it). John Horgan is the author of The End of Science (click hereto buy it) and has written for Scientific American, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Time, and numerous other publications.

Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum

What did you think of this article?

POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES

Highlights from The Fray:

From preference marketing to public policy analysis, Mr. Gladwell's theory rings very true. Because he is a writer and essayist and not a scientist, he makes members of the general public feel considerably more comfortable in learning and connecting theory to everyday life. I can tell you that a host of mayors, legislators, corporate CEOs, and those other people who make society work are engaged, provoked, and rejuvenated by the tipping point theory. The book and New Yorker article from which it sprang has prompted us to look anew at strategies, tactics, and policies to enhance the public good. It has helped immensely to improve evaluation and assessment. It has unchained chaos theory, memes, and nonlinear thinking from the province of the laboratory. I wholeheartedly agree with the Swiss historian Jacob Burkhardt who said: "The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity." But a different and no-less harmful brand of tyranny lies in discouraging public consumption of clear, understandable, and real-life interpretations of "new" science. Mr. Gladwell's book links science and social conditions as well or better than any work since Silent Spring.

--Craig Ruff

(To reply, click here.)

Because it doesn't have much to say to well-informed and science-minded people doesn't mean the book is without value. The general public has a very difficult time understanding trade-offs, let alone imagining them without an advocate's prompt. So, too, public reaction to public policy ideas benefits from awareness of tipping points and encouragement to think of them in many domains. In a world of social problems, often mistaken for technical problems and steeped in polarizing analysis (e.g. school reform), I believe it is helpful for Gladwell to direct citizens, as well as advocates, to the importance of relationships and personal influence.

--Ted Lobman

(To reply, click here.)

(3/20)