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Read: 7/25/09
ISBN: 0316346624
Recommended? Buy it. While the notes here are big concepts, Gladwell analyzes epidemics through stories. Really, really fascinating stories.

Notes

• An epidemic has three characteristics: contagiousness, little causes that have a big effect, and the change happens quickly.
• Three Rules
  1. The Law of the Few- there are a few people more important than the others. These are the ones who take a movement from a small scale to a large one.
     • Connectors- the people that know everyone, delight in casual relationships. Gladwell suggests being an connector is an innate thing. Connectors tend to occupy many world and bring them all together.
     • Mavens- The information specialists. Passionate about info collection and they desire to share it; Mavens want to help others.
     • Salesmen- Have the skills to pursuade, energy, enthusiasm. Innate ability to use subtle speech and body language cues to influence people.
  2. The Stickiness Factor- The traits of the idea or epidemic itself that make it more relevant to the world. The reason why it sticks.
     • direct marketers are the gurus of stickiness.
     • Structure and format matter, small tweaks can improve the stickiness of a message. Like experimenting with website element placement.
     • Big idea: simple, seemingly inconsequential tweaks can add up to a very sticky story.
  3. The Power of Context- the context of a message matters as much as the people and the message itself.
  • An epidemic can be tipped by small tweaks to its environment. How are you trying to spread a message? Is there another more effective way? etc.
  • The behavior of an individual is function of social context. And there are ways we don’t appreciate that what’s going on inside our head is a result of what’s happening around us.
  • We also overestimate the importance of inherent characteristics — Fundamental Attribution Error
  • Again, small changes big results.
  • If you want to change people’s beliefs, create a community around those beliefs.
• Rule of 150- 150 is about the max # of people we can have genuine social relationships with. Groups of 150 or less can effectively self-govern without the need for bureaucracy. Peer pressure and transactive memory are more powerful at this level than formal structures.
• In a world where we’re inundated with constant advertising and email marketing, etc. we become immune to these things. The cure for immunity is finding the few and getting them to connect with others. Also things like post-filters (see The Long Tail) play a big role.
• There’s a big gap between early adopters and the majority. The Few help bridge this gap. They translate ideas and drop extraneous details while sharpening the things that truly matter.
• Contagiousness is a function of the messenger, stickiness is a function of the message.
• Epidemics of isolation follow a pattern only those involved understand, but epidemics of reaction are results of social things. The pattern of an epidemic of reaction is a bit more logical to the outsiders looking in on it.

Memorable Quotes

“In order to create one contagious movement, you often have to create many small movements first.” p. 192