Tipping to the Front

In Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point, it is easy to get lost in the statistics and true facts of historic situations in the world. Galdwell defines a “tipping point” as when something (product, epidemic, disease, characteristic) takes off. It becomes popular, commonplace, and in some scenarios deadly. Galdwell believes “tipping” happens because of specific people using their key influential characteristics to talk about “something.” Things tip when statistics drastically change, items are suddenly on backorder, and people or communities do not know what hit them.

The specific people that control whether something “tips” are connectors, mavens, and salespersons. Connectors are like your social butterflies, or your overly involved people. Mavens hold products/companies in-check. Salespersons do just as a business salesman does, they convince their friends and innocent bystanders to share their same feeling. When trying to decide which type of person I am, I found it much easier to place my classmates under their own type. I can say confidently that I am not a salesperson, but I am stuck between a maven and a connector. I am not a social butterfly, but in the literal sense of the word connector I know lots of people, I know the right people to go to to get things done and who to go to when things need to happen. I could be part maven because I am a voice of truth and will not let people down.

My suggestion to make the Relay For Life Kick-off “tip” is to build personal connections with the team captains and cancer-survivors we want to come this year and every year after. In hopes that there will always be a Relay For Life Kick-off, our “tipping” should be to increase the participation for this event and also year after year. Go the extra step to make sure they are informed of the Kick-off and that they know this evening is especially for them. We can do this through building a relationship with our individual cancer survivor and by making them feel like a special part of this night. Then build connections with the team captains by making the night memorable and fun.

In a few weeks I have a very large event I am planning for the Colonnade. I have already started to apply what I have taken from this book to my event. Besides the normal advertising and promotions done for any event, I am working to make personal connections with people and encourage them to come. Instead of just relying on flyers, Bobcat Vision and facebook events, I am going to tell as many people as I can about my event with the hopes that they will see my intentions and come. I hope that with my connection and selling of the event the turnout will be phenomenal.

One interesting thing that stood out to me when I started to write this was that Gladwell wrote nothing about the perceiving part of tipping when the three different “types” of people would communicate. It would not matter if you were a connector, a maven, or a salesperson if the person you were talking to did not understand or did not want to understand what you were telling them. I only have one negative thought about The Tipping Point. There were so many references to different people it was very hard to keep up and I had to continually look back and figure out who exactly he was referring too. With that being said, all the stories and personal examples is what made the book real and recommendable.