I just finished one of the best non-fiction books I've ever read - The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell.  The basic premise is that events and trends of significant importance can be triggered by relatively minor contextual changes.  The book gives countless examples of what a "tipping point" is.  One of the first examples is Paul Revere's ride on horseback through the Boston countryside on April 18, 1775, warning of a British raid the next day.  Why is this an example of a tipping point?  Whatever Revere did or said as he rode from house to house was extremely convincing.  The next day, the local militia was ready and the British were beaten back - this was certainly a satisfactory start to the American Revolution.  In contrast to Revere's success in warning the locals, another man by the name of William Dawes rode a different direction out of the city at roughly the same time, with the same information, attempting to accomplish the same thing.  He failed.  Along the route that Dawes chose, none of the militia was prepared to meet the British the following day.  No one had listened to him.

The point is that Paul Revere had certain personality characteristics that made people take him seriously and respond quickly to his advice.  William Dawes didn't have that innate advantage.  Gladwell attempts to prove that the key to establishing any trend, whether it's starting a revolution or launching a new clothing brand, is to first connect with the people like Paul Revere.  Gladwell classifies those people into the groups Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen.

For me, the ironic thing about this book is that it seems to have been targetted somewhat at people in product marketing.  For example, I first heard about it in a business school marketing seminar.  And the author cites a number of product management examples as tipping points.  But the overall message is relevant in a much broader way.  For example, how can tipping point analysis be used to stop the spread of infectious disease, or to reduce the impact of teenage smoking?  The latter examples, which have real social impact, were much more compelling to me than the examples about marketing that didn't have the same social relevance.

The cool thing about the author's writing style is his way of aggregating research from a number of different fields.  He talks about everything from Crossing the Chasm to Sesame Street to what makes a good salesman. 

Regarding Crossing the Chasm, if you haven't read it, I would recommend reading Tipping Point first.  The latter includes a summary of the former and I found the former to be pretty boring.  Chasm was a real breakthrough when it first came out (1991), but there's been so much written about it since then, especially all of the technical marketing publicity surrounding the dot-com boom/bust, that anything more than a summary of its conclusions is probably useful only to a marketer with some spare time.

A final note about The Tipping Point.  I've mentioned that Salesmen are one of the key groups in establishing trends.  Gladwell discusses what makes a good salesman, a topic that I'd been thinking about recently.  In fact, my curiosity toward that topic prompted me to read The Art of Closing Any Deal, by James W. Pickens, just because I happened to find it at a local used book store.  My conclusion is that The Art of Closing Any Deal is a good resource on salesmanship in the same way that Rich Dad, Poor Dad is a good book on money management and Creating Wealth is a good book on real estate investment.  They're all inspirational and far from complete, although I guess we can't expect them to come out and say, "If all you have going for you is what you've read in this book, you're probably screwed!" 

Specifically, Pickens's book is a good resource for honing your pressure sales tactics if you're already in a typical sales job.  But according to Gladwell's research, the secret to innate sales talent - what makes the great sales people really great - is genetics.  The best sales people are able to relate with others - to really empathize with other people - very quickly and very effectively using physiological reactions (body language) that they don't even directly control.  Pretty cool concept.  Referring to a super-talented salesman who Gladwell interviewed for the book, he was able to "build a level of trust and rapport in five to ten minutes that most people will take half an hour to do."  I'm just hoping that guy won't be working at the dealership next time I go to buy a used car ...