Tipping Point

A world that follows the rules of epidemics is a very different place from the world we think we live in now.

Think, for a moment, about the concept of contagiousness. If I say that word to you, you think of colds and the flu, or perhaps something very dangerous like HIV or Ebola. We have, in our minds, a very specific, biological notion of what contagiousness means. But if there can be epidemics of crime or epidemics of fashion, there must be all kinds of things just as contagious as viruses.

Have you ever though about yawning, for instance? Yawning is a surprisingly powerful act. Just because you read the word "yawning" in the previous two sentences - and the two additional "yawns" in this sentence - a good number of you will probably yawn within the next few minutes.

Even as I am writing this, I've yawned twice. If you're reading this in a public place, and you've just yawned, chances are that a good proportion of everyone who saw you yawn is now yawning too, and a good proportion of the people watching the people who watched you yawn are now yawning as well, and on and on, in an ever widening yawning circle.

Footnotes:

Excerpts from the acclaimed Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, which is a highly intelligent and articulate account of how little things can make a big difference!

For those of you who are interested in understanding trends and the undercurrents that make them as powerful as shockwaves of an earthquake, this is the book to get hold of!

So, what really, is the Tipping Point?