Questioning the Tipping Point
I recently got a free subscription to Fast Company. The magazine is uneven, at best, but I've found at least one interesting article in the two I've received to date.
In this month's issue, there's an article worth reading that calls into question the importance of "influentials" in generating social trends. Some of you may be familiar with this theory, as it was given wide distrubution in Malcolm Gladwell's best-seller, The Tipping Point.
I post this since you tend to hear, given enough time around anything having to do with marketing, a phrase such as "thought leader." This concept comes straight from the thinking that Gladwell and others explore (and, to an extent, celebrate), and which has really entered the popular imagination.
Duncan Watts, the Columbia researcher whose work is profiled in the piece, does not provide a definitive rebuttal of the theory of Influentials. But, he does convincingly demonstrate that things likely don't work as this theory purports. As he puts it:
"My models might be totally wrong," he says cheerfully. "But at least I'm clear about what I'm saying. You can look at them, and tell me if you disagree. But none of these other thinkers are actually clear about what they're saying. You can't tell if they're wrong."
It's an interesting read.
Posted: February 1, 2008 4:57 pm | 0 comments
Tags: fast company, tipping point
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