Complexifying the Tipping Point
“It sort of sounds cool,” Watts says, tucking into his salad. “But it’s wonderfully persuasive only for as long as you don’t think about it.”
Duncan Watt’s provides a counterpoint to Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point theory, in which ideas are spread by super-influencers. Watt has spent years looking at social dynamics, and is convinced that Gladwell’s ideas are too simplistic, and should be placed in a more complex, and likely more unmanageable context.
His argument doesn’t mean that he doesn’t believe that some people are more influential than others (all the marketers can breath out now) but instead thinks time should be spent looking at the environments in which ideas spread. He suggests that instead of a ‘viral’ metaphor, we should be using a ‘forest fire’ as the way we think about how this stuff works - and fire spread when the environmental conditions are correct.
And no, I know that ‘complexifying’ isn’t a real word :)
Via FastCompany
~ by Stephen on March 12, 2008.
Posted in Business 2.0, complexity, digital, internet
Tags: internet, tipping point, gladwell, malcolm gladwell, meme, idea, viral
My take on this is that they’re both right. But do Watt’s views have to be presented as contrary to Gladwell’s? If we extend Watt’s ‘forest fire’ analogy, couldn’t Gladwell’s Mavens, Connectors and Salesmen be represented by how flammable different forest materials are?
In fact Gladwell talks about environmental or contextual influences at length in his book. His memorable description of the good samaritan experiment (summarised neatly here) is a fine example.
I don’t think Watt is saying anything new here. And the controversy around his comments won’t do his profile (or future book sales) any harm at all…
Ah Phil, so cynical…are you suggesting that an academic might pick a contrary view solely to sell more books? Surely not!
But aside from that, I do like the fact that this article at the very least might cause one or two people to question the simplicity of the message that gets communicated by readers of the book. I’ve heard the Tipping Point brought up many times by various people in workshops or client meetings, and it’s always the simple message that gets communicated (I’m guilty of this too) - without the nuance or caveat that Watts alludes to.
thats for sure, man