The World's Best Book Summaries
How has the Information Age impacted the way we interact with one another? There undoubtedly many positive consequences. What are the negative outcomes? We’ll cover three ways the Information Age has impacted social epidemics, or the spread of ideas: the rise of isolationism, the rise of immunity, and the issue of finding “mavens,” people to help spread information.
What is the Law of the Few? Where does it come from? Why is it important in business, sales, and marketing? The Law of the Few is the idea that certain types of people are especially effective at spreading an infectious idea, product, or behavior. This idea was popularized in Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point. We’ll cover examples of the Law of the Few and look at why the messengers matter in the art of marketing.
How do you sell a product, any product, and create something that people can’t get enough of? What you are trying to ignite is a social epidemic, when an idea, message, or product spreads through the public masses like wildfire and creates a craze. This is how to sell a product. We’ll take a cue from medical epidemics: When a virus spreads, it starts with one person — Patient Zero — who gets sick and infects a handful of others. Then each infected person passes the germs to more people, and with exponential speed and reach the virus spreads until
What is the early adopters model? How do innovators and early adopters affect the success of your marketing strategy? What is an early adopter example? The “early adopters” model is a system in sociology that explains how a contagious idea or product spreads among people who adopt it at different phases. In the model, an idea spreads from innovators and early adopters all the way to the laggards. We’ll cover how the early adopters model works, what an early adopters example looks like, and why innovators and early adopters should be important elements of your marketing strategy.
What is a Gaussian curve? In which situations can it accurately describe the world? Where does it fail, and what are its limits? The Gaussian curve is another name for the classic bell curve, or normal distribution curve. It’s named after German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss, and it describes many phenomena accurately. We’ll look at where the Gaussian curve is accurate and where (and why) it fails.
What is naive empiricism? How does it work to counter confirmation bias? Naive empiricism is the scientific practice of approaching a problem without any assumptions or expectations, relying solely on empirical evidence. This term is occasionally used differently in other fields. We’ll cover how naive empiricism combats confirmation bias and other cognitive errors.
Tipping Points are all about small ways to make significant change. So-called Band-Aid solutions — despite the term’s negative connotations — can actually be the most effective strategies by taking focused, targeted action with the least amount of time, effort, and cost. Using a heavy amount of effort to tackle all aspects of a problem is not always possible or the best use of energy. We’ll cover the analogy of the epidemic, look at a case study of band-aid solutions, and discuss why band-aid solutions are often the best solutions.
How do you create a trend, or a social movement, or a product that people can’t get enough of? How do you spread ideas? What you are trying to ignite is a social epidemic, when an idea, message, or product spreads through the public masses like wildfire and creates a craze. Take a cue from medical epidemics: When a virus spreads, it starts with one person — Patient Zero — who gets sick and infects a handful of others. Then each infected person passes the germs to more people, and with exponential speed and reach the virus spreads until it
What are “unknown unknowns.” Why do we have the tendency to avoid them? We’ll cover why unknown unknowns are so hard to see (we don’t know that we do don’t know them!) and how our tendency to “tunnel” gives us an inaccurate picture of the world.
Who is DeeDee Gordon? How did she get preppy kids to wear skater shoes, resulting in the epidemic success of the shoe company Airwalk? DeeDee Gordon is a maven able to spot trends that are about to explode. She was responsible for making Airwalk’s skater shoes mainstream, which led to the company’s widespread success. We’ll cover how DeeDee Gordon turned Airwalk’s branding around and how ideas like Gordon’s become epidemics through the diffusion model.