WEEKLY TASKS FOR THIS CLASS....
These are time sensitive. You do not receive credit if you write them after the deadline each week.
First, there's a blog entry (about 250 words) which will have you respond to a hopefully thought-provoking question. Each week, you must do the blog entry with enough time left in the week to be able to enter into dialogue online with your classmates. Write, reply, write more, reply more, and then write and reply more.
Second, there's a reading. There’s no blog entry associated with this. Just read.
Third, there's a written response to the reading. Your reading and writing on the blog must be completed by the SATURDAY (by midnight) of the week in which the reading falls. This entry should be a long paragraph. YOU DO NOT NEED TO RESPOND TO OTHER STUDENTS' PART THREE EACH WEEK.
So far I’ve really enjoyed reading The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell. It’s not really what I expected it would be. However, I was pleasantly surprised. I like it because it gets me thinking about trends, and how you never think about how, why, or when they start. It’s interesting to read all of the elements that compose a trend. The Law of the Few is an interesting concept he talks about. I like how he breaks down the concept of each trend relying on three types of people. I find it interesting how some of the qualities of these people are simply natural characteristics, while others are gained through status and popularity. For example, salesmen have to be naturally charismatic and infectious. However, connectors and mavens are usually people who gain their influence on people through their status and credibility. What I really started thinking about was how interesting it was that one person or group of people can have such a big impact on a much larger group. I also find it very helpful that he is constantly bringing up examples. He brings up situations where the reader can see and relate to what he’s describing. What I like about this is that he talks about examples from very different areas. He brings up examples about Paul Revere, Hush Puppies and even the fluctuation of crime rates. All of these examples are very different, but he's able to find and describe a common denominator in all. Reading the book I even started to wonder about certain trends that are going around now. I wonder about how and who started them. It’s interesting to see how a small act, instance, or simply one person can start such a huge trend.
ReplyDeleteThe Tipping Point is interesting to read because of the ideology introduced. It states that it is the little things that can cause an epidemic or as I like to think a “Butterfly Effect”. This means that something no matter how small can have a big and or large impact in futuristic trends. The Tipping Point start of by explaining when a tipping point begins. There was a tipping point for fax machines, phone’s and other devices. The tipping point for these devices was usually when everyone started to have them and it became a norm. Epidemics and or trends continue in a large scale due to small trends. Another great example of an epidemic and the tipping point is the yawn. The yawn is basically contagious and as other people see you yawn they will yawn and so will the people that see them yawn. This occurs continuously and evidently this could be noticed and or called as a butterfly effect. There are basically three rules and or guidelines of the Tipping Point. These are: The Law of the Few, Stickiness Factor, and finally the Power Context. These are important in order to further understand the Tipping Point. These are basic guidelines to understand other broad concepts of the book. Overall this book seems like it will be an interesting read and important to understand broad concepts to further apply them to personal life decisions. Finally the book analyzes situations that explain and or correlate to the Tipping Point.
ReplyDeleteThe tipping point is explained as the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point. The three characteristics of a tipping point are contagiousness, the fact that little cause can have big effects, and that change can happen not gradually, but at one dramatic moment. These three principles apply to my major of Kinesiology first by noticing my friends and people around me are going to college. As I noticed more and more of my friends graduating from college or entering into college, it became contagious to me, wanting to do the same before I got left behind. The second principle applies to my major when I notice after just taking a couple classes, big changes start happening in my life. After just one semester at Bakersfield College, I noticed everyone treating me differently and showing me more respect. I also notice big changes in my personal life, like I’m holding myself to higher standards and pushing myself to do things that I never thought possible before starting my degree. The third principle of a tipping point applies to my major after starting my degree. I notice more doors open up for me, not gradually, but all at once. After starting my Kinesiology degree, I’ve noticed that more people are approaching me and wanting me to work for them or in their facility, and in only the first year of my degree. Like a tipping point, all these changes and opportunities have all come not slowly but all at once, like an epidemic.
ReplyDeleteThe tipping point is so interesting! As I started reading it, it made a lot of since about the fashion with the hush puppies and other upcoming trends. How they were so outdated and were now coming back into style. This reminded me of what is occurring today. Many items such as clothes, shoes, hairstyles, and more that were a trend decades ago have become such a trend today. Now, the key words in this story is “tipped and virus” things fall and pick up again and can be contagious. I totally agree when he stated that when we hear contagious we automatically think of something bad. He also had a point that contagious can just mean anything from medical viruses to fashion. A question that stood with me throughout the chapters I read was “who would I like to be as an educator and parent.” In society we never know who we will be and how we will be. It’s something that society chooses for you, because it influences. For example, it persuades us to do and to believe many things. As Gladwell explains that at some point we all become contagious or we give the virus.
ReplyDeleteAfter starting to read The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, I have come to realize that this book is written in a way that is so modern and makes a reader want to read more and more. This book does not fail to provide evidence to back up the arguments that it presents. This makes the book more interesting because the reader can trust the information presented in this book. This book is trying to make the reader understand how things go up in their trend and are popular over time because of their certain features and such. I think this book is very interesting because it made me think about certain products that have tipped over time. There are a lot of products today that have tipped over time and became really popular because they tipped. The different rules of the tipping point outlined on page 29 are really interesting because they explain how a product reaches a tipping point. This book talks about a lot of ideas that we do not think about on a daily basis. “The Power of Context says that human beings are a lot more sensitive to their environment than they may seem.” This quote on page 29 is one of my favorite lines in the book because it is very interesting how we human beings are sensitive to our surroundings. I hope that this book educates us me more about product trends and their tipping point and that effect on sales and such.
ReplyDeleteThis book looks like it is going to be intense with different critical information. The book The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell’s is a book where I did not find much interest in the beginning maybe because I had just began the book but after all it became more interesting as I progressed in the reading. This book starts of by stating how individuals do not know much about trends but their usual trend they follow because we don’t reach out to learn new trends. There are so many trends in the world that we don’t know about because we are afraid to acknowledge something different than our everyday norms. I feel like he is talking about how people are comfort with their lives but if they see something different they will not acknowledge it. I really like how he engages me to read more after the first chapter when he talks about where this book will lead to in the next pages. He explains how he will be talking about why some trends actually progress and are followed rather than those that are just ignored. What I found really interesting in the second chapter was the power of salespeople it is true how he states that these individuals do have much power over us in what we buy. We sometimes don’t even need that item but we buy it because we get convinced, others have it as well, or because we just buy it for no particular reason. I could connect to what a salesperson can do because I work at a restaurant on weekends and I find myself doing this things such as motivating or in other words persuading people to buy our food plates. This is going to be an interesting book and I am eager to keep reading more.
ReplyDeleteThe tipping point so far has grabbed my attention. There are many interesting facts on topics that have never crossed my mind - or at least thought about in-depth. One in particular that stood out to me was the story of Kitty Genovese of Queens, New York, and the study behind what had happened. Kitty was attacked out on the street by her attacker as thirty-eight of her neighbors watched from their windows. Out of all of them, none of them called the police. Why? According to the two Psychologists from the New York City, they believe that the more people there to witness, the less likely they will intervene or help. They think that someone else will take the initiative to call 911, so they just ignore the situation. This is quite frightening to know that when someone is in distress, the more people there are witnessing, the less they will care to help. Another thing that the book talks about are the words "contagious" and "epidemics". Contagious isn't always associated with bad things, like colds, or viruses, it can be something good; a smile can be contagious, or a laugh, or even a yawn can be contagious. But, in the first chapter of the book, contagious is associated with STDs, and how it causes an epidemic. All of the information on how easily syphilis, gonorrhea, HIV, and AIDS are spread is shocking. And just as the book mentions, it's not that many people from the population are infecting others, it's a small percentage of them who infect people. So far, it has been very informative and has opening my eyes to topics I have not been well-informed on.
ReplyDeleteJust by reading the title I thought the book would be a personal story of a person hitting a “tipping point.” As I started reading I immediately realized I was completely wrong but surprisingly impressed. How does one hit a tipping point? Malcolm Gladwell offers some great insight on how little things can make a big difference. This got me thinking about my personal life. I always thought that small changes never made a difference. But I then realized that any types of changes do ultimately lead to a difference. It was interesting to read about how certain things go viral or in demand in an instance, I guess a tipping point. It’s all so interesting and mind blowing. A great example in the book was the Hush Puppy shoes that were very popular in the 1970s but dropped in the 1990s and then came back in demand in 1995. They came back into demand due to some young people in Manhattan. I found it so fun to read all these examples. Now we could incorporate hitting the tipping point with social media. For example, I have a friend who made a simple video on vine (a social media app) and the video went viral. He now has hundreds of thousands of followers on several social media apps all because of that one video that went viral. Overall, I have really enjoyed the book and can’t wait to finish it.
ReplyDeleteThe Tipping Point is full of interesting examples that describe what the tipping point is. The author used the hush puppies as an example of a trend that loses popularity but then gains it. According to the author, the hush puppies were popular for a certain time in the 1970s but then were not in the 1990s. However, they started to be popular again in 1995 because certain people in Manhattan began wearing them. The people that wore them influenced people to start wearing them again. Another example that he used was the yawning effect. He wrote that people usually start yawning when they hear, or see someone yawn. I believe that this is true especially because I have experienced it. I’ve seen people yawn as soon as after I have yawned. The funny thing is that once someone yawns everyone starts yawning. I also found it funny that the author tried to make his readers yawn when writing about the yawning effect. He actually made me yawn after I finished reading that paragraph. So far I am enjoying this book and I am excited to read about the Genovese effect. I actually read an article that described the story of Kitty Genovese with my 8th grade students this week. It is a very interesting and sad story about a lady who was stabbed three times while her neighbors watched. None of her neighbors bothered calling the cops while the incident was happening. I am curious to know what Malcolm Gladwell is going to say about the Genovese effect.
ReplyDeleteNow I know I am not supposed to judge a book by its cover or title, but I did that before starting to read this book. I must say, my assumption was completely wrong from what the story is actually about. Because the book is titles "The Tipping Point", I automatically invisions a novel in which the main character had some form of mental illness such as depression or post traumatic stress disorder that had his or her final thought of sanity and acted out on an inappropriate form. However, I was completely misguided. This book is actually refering to the very minor actions that can potentially lead to the problem getting worse to the point that they have no control over. One of the examples the author uses to get his point accross is the syphilis decease, its relationship with Beltamore in particular. As a read more and more about syphilis, I began to have flash backs on an older English classroom I previously had. I did understand that syphilis is highly contagiousl, that did not come to a suprise to me. However, the typical person contacting the decease was completely new to me. While one the previous course, I leaned that the typical patient was African American. This was irrelevant to this book, where th typical victim was highly sexually active and was on cocain. I found it very interesting and cannot wait to see what other interesting work this book has to over.
ReplyDeleteSo far I have enjoyed reading "The Tipping Point". I definitely wasn't sure what the book was going to be about, but it is very interesting. What amazes me is how fast something can change. One person can say something to the right person and it can change your life forever. This book is about how one simple thing can change the course of action in either a positive or negative way. I loved reading all of the examples in the book. It is crazy to me how one person can do, say, or wear something that could completely change how everyone views it thus making it popular or even unpopular, but no one knows which road it will go down. In certain cases something so minute can spark a change leading to popularity. I can't wait to read more examples Gladwell gives for The Tipping Point. I can't help but think about the trends that are going on now, how they became popular, when they became popular, and who made them popular. Society can be very judgmental so you just never know how people are going to view something.
ReplyDeleteThis week I began to read "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell and it caught my attention on how the most insignificant things can impact on a large scale. The first example that caught my attention was how ordinary kids began to wear the Hush Puppy shoes and it eventually began a large trend after the shoes were completely taken out by the manufacturer. These kids gave the shoes a brand new jump start to a point where the company seen a significant increase of sales in a small period of time. This eventually brought the shoes back to life and began to be seen by famous designers and huge companies. The other example that caught my attention was the rise of STD's being recorded at the same time that the drug trade and distribution increased in rural areas. Drugs ultimately lead to unsafe and risky human behavior that eventually helped cause the spread of STD'd on a huge recorded scale. The drug was in part responsible for the fast and huge spread of sexually transmitted diseases. The cover of the book also caught my eye as it has a picture of a match. A match is really nothing, but it has the potential to cause a wild fire with many damages. I see that as an example of what something so small can have the ability to cause. As I read more into the book I begin to see things in which the author is intending to try and get his readers to see things. I think Gladwell is a very good writer and I am looking forward to see what he has in store throughout his book "The Tipping Point."
ReplyDeleteAs I started reading The Tipping Point, author Malcom Gladwell was quick to grab my attention. I wasn't quite sure what to expect from the reading however as I read along, Gladwell arouse my curiosity. It gets the reader thinking how something so small can make such a big impact on society, like a small match (as seen on the cover)can cause a huge fire. Trends starts small from who knows where and who knows what and suddenly everyone starts following it as well. Trends are like a domino effect you simply push one domino down and the rest follow. Some people are not even fully of aware of certain trends because they are to focus following others. Maxwell says trends are contagious. Just how when someone yawns someone around them yawns as well. Same goes with trends one does it and everyone else does. Trends can be in anything from social, political and cultural. To be more precise, like in the fashion industry, clothes are in one day and out the next. For example the hush puppies trend that once outdated and the trend reappeared. And even today walking into stores like forever21 we see a lot of fashion that have been brought back from the 70s, 80s and 90s. Overall, so far I have enjoyed the topics Gladwell has discussed and I am eager to see what else is in store.
ReplyDeleteWhen I started The Tipping point I was confused, Hush Puppies are in style but not in the part of the community I participate in. I originally thought he was writing about food. I think the idea there is a tipping point is a wonderful one. It can be seen in numerous cultures, especially ones who have revolutions, or are building to that, have this point when enough is to much and then things get out. Of. Control.I am not sure if why certain things trigger a tipping point can be identified though, there are so many aspects to life and culture, especially here in America. With the hush puppies example, their tipping point was when some young kids in New York City started wearing them making them cool, but to understand New York Cities culture and those who are trend setters in fashion is one thing when finding a tipping point for social issues is another. We see with famous athletes all the time, that when they endorse something, especially before games and after games, the general public will go crazy for it. For example when during the last mens world cup Neymar wore beats head phones on the way to the stadium (breaking a contract he had with another brand), fans of his went insane! While beats were already very popular, he created a lot of hype around this one item. Finding a tipping point for social issues will be harder. While famous people can endorse an issue up to a point, I don’t believe that they can create a boiling point purposely. When it comes to social issues enough people need to be affected by it and get angry enough with the situation before the tipping point can be reached.
ReplyDeleteStarting the tipping point it occurred to me that this book seems to be on the same page as Freakanomics. The chapter that really stood out to me was chapter 3 where the term stickiness factor comes into play. The stickiness refers to a unique quality that compels it to stick in the minds of the viewer. With this Gladwell then turns his attention to popular tv shows and what sticks and what does not stick. He goes on to explain the longevity of Sesame Street because of its ability to help children with learning literacy. He also mentioned that Blue’s Clues was basically the same as Sesame Street with just new characters. The stickiness factor basically boils down to the shows ability to affect the influence to future behavior. In chapter 1 he explains the rules of epidemics which are the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor (chapter 3 as mentioned), and the Power of Context. These three rules make up the Rules of Epidemics. He explains the rules of epidemics by noting the epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases which were under the influence of the super infectors, these were they who infected dozens or hundreds of diseases. The people who then were infected are called the connectors who help to begin or tip the disease.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love books like these that analyze the different behavior and psychology of populations. My favorite part of the reading was about the so called "stickiness" factor of trends. There is something unique about each trend if you really think about it. What this made me think of was how trends are so impactful that they influence our lifestyles. For one example, gluten free diets were virtually unheard of about four years ago and suddenly now everyone who feels they have some stomach issue must be allergic to gluten. I generally feel that according to Gladwells description of stickiness I feel that health related fads and diets are the stickiest of all. Reading about the tipping point was also very interesting. Itbis very difficult to determine at what specific point a certain fad or trend beings or is launched into social stardom. For an actual stardom definition of a tipping point, I think courtney cox from friends would be a good example. She was pulled on stage to dance at a Bruce Springsteen concert in the late eighties and was immediately in the limelight because she got an acting role on friends. A social tipping point issue example I think would be something like the Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown murders. Police violence was not nearly as huge of a social issue before these cases brought them to light. These also tie into gun violence and unregulated gun ownership and school shootings. This is a very sad, but realistic fact that many people bandwagon on.
ReplyDeleteAs I began reading The Tipping Point, it almost sounded like the term Tipping Point had a similar meaning of what we know as a climax in a story. From the Tipping Point things can either can better, or worse. The Tipping Point, as stated in the book, “is the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point.” The three aspects of the Tipping Point helped broaden my understanding of it as well as understand other epidemics that have been occurring. The three aspects of the Tipping Point include: 1) Contagious behavior, 2) Little causes can have big effects, and 3) Change happens not gradually, but at one dramatic moment. One of the examples brought up in the book included yawning. Before even reading about it, I always wondered why yawning was so contagious, and now I’m learning that it’s considered as a tipping point. Whenever I see someone yawn, I always try and see if I can fight the yawn. Of course there are sometimes I succeed with it, it is still difficult to avoid yawning after seeing someone else yawn. It took me by surprise that even reading the word “yawning” in consecutive sentences, it made me yawn as well. As I analyzed the tipping point a little more, I realized I found it most apparent in fashion trends. Whether someone tries to bring back a certain style or certain item, if it compliments them or looks well on them, another person may be eager to own certain clothes or items that represent the same style, then another person, and another…and that is how the epidemic begins.
ReplyDeleteI honestly have not read too far into the book. I have only read chapter 1. However, so far this book seems pretty interesting. I like how the author is able to verify his arguments through events that happened in actual life instead of just basing them off theories. Moreover, these stories allow the reader to better understand the theories and relate more to them. For example, I liked how he supported the third rule, the Power of Context, by writing about Kitty Genovese. He explained that the environment of people is key in order to understand how they will react in a situation of emergency. The higher the number of people watching a tragic event occurring, the less likely they are to step in and help or call the police. With Kitty, 38 people saw her being chased by the man that wanted to kill her, but did nothing. If the number would have been lower, then she might have lived.
ReplyDeleteI also liked that he is informing his readers with new and fresh information that not a lot of books cover concerning human behavior. A lot of his theories seem to go against common knowledge, but the facts that he mentions do not lie. Again back with the Kitty scenario, I would have thought that any decent human being would help a poor woman that was being harassed in the street with the minimum of at least picking up the phone and dialing 911. However, the Power of Context in this scenario played an important role that stopped many neighbors from doing the right thing.
Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point has been really interesting. It puts a lot of ideas into perspective for me. I love to study Myers Briggs Brain typing, and I thought it was interesting that has 3 categories of people, when Myers Briggs uses six categories. He also talks about how events influence eachother. He calls it the “butterfly effect,” but for me it makes more sense to call it the domino or ripple effect; one event leads to another. What I enjoy most about this book is the explanations. I prefer to read books that teach me about something rather than tell me a story, however these book are often complicated. This book lays things out in plain English, and makes it much easier for the reader to grasp concepts with everyday exmaples we have all experienced.
ReplyDeleteAs I was reading though the book, Tipping point by Malcolm Gladwell I was a little confused. As I was reading this book it did not catch my attention, but once the author began to give different examples and came back to his point it made sense. For example, when he stated that the shoes hush puppies had been in trend again after so many years. This got me thinking on some of the things that are in trend now that I have wear just because they are in trend; not so much because I like the style. I though about what is written in the front cover of the book, “How little things can make a big difference.” This book got me thinking on so many things that are going on at this moment. For example there was a tipping point for Coach purses and now it appears that has decline, now the trend is for Michael Kors. At the end of the day they are both purses/ handbags, but the value is given by this tipping point that people gives them. The author also talks about the crime rate increasing in New York. He states, that the trend on Hush Puppies and the increasing on the crime rate both are “clear examples of contagious behavior.” I can see this happening in my surroundings with the purses/handbags. Like I mentioned before at the beginning of the chapter I was confused and a little discouraged, but as I continue to read and relate the examples I admit it is quite interesting. It got me thinking that’s for sure.
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