Malcolm Gladwell’s title of his book, The Tipping Point, is a very good explanation to summarize what Gladwell is trying to focus or pin point in his book. Just as the words are said in the title, “the tipping point” is the exact pivotal point or moment when particular ideas, behaviors or trends are reached. When these ideas, behaviors, or trends reach a certain level it usually reaches the boiling point or the “threshold” as Gladwell states, which is like the climax of a book when all things come together or build up to meet at the highest most significant point. Once these ideas, behaviors, or trends make it to this point then it creates an epidemic causing it to spread which creates a significant reaction.
As Gladwell states in the book, in order for there to be a tipping point and these sets of ideas, trends or social behaviors to start epidemics there are three rules that apply towards achieving a tipping point. The three rules include the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor and the Power of Context. With these rules Gladwell focuses on how to achieve a tipping point. With the rule of the Stickiness Factor there must be some form of impact to cause stickiness, which is one of the critical components for allowing something to tip. In order to create stickiness there must be one thing achieved and that is the main principle of creating a message or statement that is unforgettable and can result in being contagious. The Law of the Few rule states that when it comes to determining how epidemics occur, it usually happens as a result of only a small percentage of people involved. The third rule, the Power of Context, is within the way an epidemic can be influenced by the nature of its surroundings. As human beings, we care about our environment and a lot of the times we are strongly influenced to make decisions based off solely on what is going on around us. A person’s behavior can be altered because of its environment and as a result this has an effect with how epidemics are created. These three rules help to gain more insight into how exactly Gladwell describes what a tipping point is and when epidemics occur based off one rule or combination of them.
By following these three rules that Gladwell emphasizes in his book, I think that my Public Relations and Administration classes campaign, “One Team, One Spirit,” which is centered to help boost attendance at men’s basketball games will definitely tip. Our classes’ mission for trying to get this campaign to tip and boost attendance at not only GCSU men’s basketball games, but other athletic events can best be described by Gladwell. Gladwell states, “When we are trying to make an idea or attitude or product tip, we’re trying to change our, audience in some small yet critical respect: we’re trying to infect them, sweep them up in our epidemic, convert them from hostility to acceptance” (Gladwell 166). I believe that this is our mission for the campaign and we need to begin to follow this idea as our goal towards making this campaign successful and to tip. In order to get the results we want from this campaign, I think we need to follow the Stickiness Factor. What we want is to make a message so memorable that it will stick in students and faculty’s minds and will draw them into action, which will be attending men’s basketball games and showing support. I think we have already created a good start for our message within our logo for the campaign, “One Team, One Spirit.” To make this message more successful campus wide, we need to make it stick. Within epidemics, to make the message spread it needs the help of messengers (Gladwell 92). In this campaign, our class is the messengers. It is going to be the smaller, more subtle ways of making the message of “One Team, One Spirit” stick. Just as Gladwell mentions the idea of repetition in words as one of the keys to success for the kids television show Blues Clues and Sesame Street, I think repetition of our message will be a small and subtle way to change our audience into accepting this message. As messengers it is our job to start this repetition of the logo. Even though our class is small, I believe we can begin to start an epidemic on our campus by making awareness of this message. The first way we can begin to this is by a word of mouth epidemic. By letting friends and others know about “One Team, One Spirit” then it will get everyone interested in what the message is referring to. A way to keep repetition of our logo and to get everyone on campus to know who the men’s basketball players are and to begin to get to know them would be to have all the players wear a plain t-shirt with the logo, “One Team, One Spirit” incorporated on the shirt. The t-shirt can be very basic and can have written on the front the logo in permanent marker and the player’s names and numbers on the back. Our class can start the same idea by wearing the same made t-shirts with the logo. The whole idea is for the message to stick and for everyone on campus to begin to see repetition of the logo and create a campus wide school spirit towards the men’s basketball team.
I feel like out of the three “types” of people in society that Gladwell refers to including the Connectors, the Mavens and the Salesmen that out of the three I am most like the Mavens. Although I do not have a full on personality like the Mavens described in the book, I still have a few characteristics that puts myself into this category of “types” of people in society. The Mavens or also known as the “Market Mavens” are individuals who accumulate knowledge. I believe I am a Maven in the aspect that some of my own personality qualities are that I am a good listener and I have a good memory. From these two qualities, I think it helps in the aspect of me being able to retain a lot of information I hear. Most of my friends tell me that I am a good listener and I think this ability carries over in other areas of my life. I know, for instance, in dance I am like a maven in that I usually accumulate knowledge from dance movements once they are taught to me very well. I am also able to retain musical rhythms and elements that also apply towards dance. I believe this knowledge to retain this information has helped towards me being able to work on fulfilling a dance minor. As “Market Mavens” like to keep the marketplace an honest place by retaining information about different products, places, or prices by being helpers in the marketplace. I am a Maven in that information whether it is educational, informative or just fun facts; I usually am interested and curious about it and will note this information to myself.
This semester our PR and Administration class has been venturing out and trying different social media outlets. Some of these media outlets include public relations blogs, PR Open Mic, Twitter and LinkenIn. There comes a moment when using these new social media outlets that one could experience a “tipping point.” I feel like I am not at the point yet where I have tipped using these social media outlets, but I am still trying to gain knowledge of these outlets and acquiring these skills. I think they do provide an excellent way to communicate further with other public relations professionals in the field and is helpful with communicating with classmates. I know that by using these social media outlets it will only help me in the future in the world of public relations and by further using these outlets I hope to be able to tip soon.
Gladwell, Malcolm. The Tipping Point. New York: Back Bay Books, 2002.
10 comments:
You used a great quote from Gladwell in relation to the mission of our campaign. Good job pulling that from the text! You are also right in that we need the Stickiness factor in order for our campaign to be successful and that our class represents the messengers of the campaign.
It seems like most of us are in agreement that what we really need in order to be successful is a word-of-mouth epidemic. Your idea of the t-shirts bearing our "One Team, One Spirit" slogan is inspired. I think that the simplicity of it is good because it would lead to curiousness among students on campus. What is this "One Team, One Spirit" thing? Hopefully they would seek more information and end up coming to the games. In short, I like it. It's simple but has the ability to be very effective!
Oh, and I have confidence that you will tip soon ;)
I think your idea about making basketball players more identifiable is great. We definitely need to "brand" (marketing term...yikes!) our campaign so that people will recognize our slogan for what it is. I think the Thunders will help with that a lot.
I agree with Lauren that we all seem to agree about word-of-mouth! :-) I think a really important part to that will be our own personal efforts towards that. Like starting word-of-mouth campaigns among our friends, not just hoping that people coming to the games will leave and talk about them to their friends.
And I for one am always impressed that you are a dance minor...I can't imagine working that hard!
Great job!
The last part of your paper made me think the most. You're completely right - with all of the ways we've involved ourselves with the internet and the websites we use, you would think we would be pretty close to tipping. And maybe some of have. Like you, i feel like i haven't. I really think we could be well on our way, but there is some aspect of all this that just hasn't clicked yet... at least not with me. Trying to get there though
Tamalyn! We noticed the same quote from pg. 166! Kudos, my friend, I think it was a great one.
Good job pinpointing the Market Maven, too. I think it was a good way to interpret your personality and include dance. Well done.
Repeat alert- Like others before me have said, your points are right on about word of mouth epidemic! You said- "By letting friends and others know about “One Team, One Spirit” then it will get everyone interested in what the message is referring to. A way to keep repetition of our logo and to get everyone on campus to know who the men’s basketball players are and to begin to get to know them would be to have all the players wear a plain t-shirt with the logo, “One Team, One Spirit” incorporated on the shirt."
This is a great example and one that may even come true after a meeting with Coach Sellers. I think we must capitalize on the influence of getting our student body to recognize and support our athletes more is the way to go!
Great job Tamalyn!
After reading through different posts by our classmates I feel like we have very cohesive ideas about our campign relating to the Tipping Point. I enjoyed reading your ideas about the word of mouth epidemic and I also like the t-shirt idea. We definitally need a stickiness factor but it is so hard to know what will tip the students to attend. There are so many events and other activities like intramurals pulling students in so many directions. We need to find out through our campaign what make students actually go and not just say "that would be fun."
Tamalyn I really like how you pointed out that it is our responsibility to change the audience and that is our job because that can only be done through a sticky message. I don't think that our class thus far is really pushing the message, rather than the special events. We need to somehow regroup and utilize the tools that we learned from this book. Book post maven.
I agree with you totally on the fact that we have to use the stickiness factor for our campaign to work. I also liked how you said that we have to have repetition of our logo. people have to see what we are doing over and over again to catch on to the buzz. i also put in my blog that we have to use the word-of-mouth epidemic. Because our campus is so small, i think that is the best way to do it. i see how you are a maven. you said you can accumulate knowledge and are a good listener. i wish i had more of those qualities.
I completely agree with your statement about repeating our message. In my post, I incorporated something from another class saying that in order to make a message spread, and in this case stick, it should be simple, it should resonate and it should be repeated. I think we've started to repeat our message through our Thunder cutouts. While we can recognize this, I'm afraid our student body has no idea what is going on yet. I guess it just needs to have a little more time before it can tip.
I also agree with the comment Amanda made about making the basketball team more recognizeable, especially on games days. I don't think a lot of our students realize who they are. Wearing tshirts would be a great idea!
Stickiness is certainly something we need to strive for within our current campaign. I really like the idea of making t-shirts. This would be a great way to reach out to our student base AND start a good buzz with word-of-mouth, especially if the t-shirts were catered to different social and academic circles on campus (i.e. one shirt that might appeal to the kids in the art dept. may not appeal to the kids in the biology dept).
As far as your social and professional online networking sites are concerned, something that helps me with remembering to check and stay connected is making a bookmark (or bookmark folder) for all of my networking sites. That way they are all in one centralized location and I can just go down the list and knock them out one at a time.
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