Hovering Over The Back Button » Books

Just Read: The Tipping Point

ian — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 17:19:00 +0000

In a departure from my normal waffle, I wanted to share a book I’ve just read “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell, that I’ve come to very late – it was first published ten years ago and that anyone who’s hung around with marketers for as long as I have really ought to have read it by now!

I like this kind of book (I read a lot of Seth Godin - yeah, yeah, who doesn’t?) where authors bring to life their serious marketing theory and techniques through stories – but this one surprised me.

Here’s what the author says on his website, as a reading guide:

1. The Tipping Point is that magic moment when an idea, trend or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. At what point does it become obvious that something has reached a boiling point and is about to tip?

2. The possibility of sudden change is at the center of the idea of the Tipping Point — big changes occurring as a result of small events. If we agree that we are all, at heart, gradualists, our expectations set by the steady passage of time, is it reassuring to think that we can predict radical change by pinning their tipping points? Can we really ensure that the unexpected becomes the expected?

Now that’s what I expected to learn.

What I didn’t expect to learn was about the Tipping Point being applied to Revere’s ride at the dawn of American Independence, fighting violent crime in New York, TV for kids, research into why people smoke, the reasons why groups of 150 are good and the relationship to the evolution of our brains…. and, and, and… a whole host of absolutely fascinating stories.

Clearly Gladwell knows his stuff, these stories brought the points to life, making it a super read and elevating this book from a simple marketing book, to something I’d recommend to anyone.

Interested? Here are (affiliate) links to it on the Amazon US and Amazon UK websites – or read more on the authors website.

I’ve Written a Book!

ian — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 21:39:00 +0000

I’ve written a book – alright quite a small book admittedly and when I say ‘I’ve written’ – I do mean with the help of various members of our marketing team – @karengibbons, @bob_barker and @lindajvetter – but none the less, sitting on my desk, fresh from the printers is The Little Book of Web Engagement. It’s 88 pages of tips, ideas, quotes and anecdotes on the what, how, why and who of putting your website into the front line of customer engagement.

I am guessing that you can guess who we believe are the ‘who’ is of Web Engagement (sorry to spoil the ending for you!) – but on your way there you’ll get some really nice quotes from analysts, our customer and other industry experts, wrapped up in some text from me and the team that we hope will help and inspire you.

The books will be used as part of a marketing campaign pretty soon and when that starts you’ll be able to register for one on our website – but if you are interested in getting one in the meantime let me know (it’s free!!).

*** update 16th September 2009 – You can now register to have the little book sent to you here ***

Dreaming in Code – No Really!

ian — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 20:58:27 +0000

At some point I need to reconnect with the rest of my life – I realised this as I flicked open “Dreaming in Code“, after a day of dealing with Product Development and an evening of refactoring my frankly poorly designed personal coding project (I recently decided that Java coding purely for personal pleasure was a valid hobby) – maybe Dreaming in Code wasn’t the best antidote and I need to start thinking about something else.

But.. that’s not the books fault! In fact it is to it’s credit that it’s so immersing – that you are living the ‘dream’ of being on the inside of a software project. Anyone who has had anything to do with software development ever will have instant empathy for the protagonists and the cruel part of the book – it being complete and published before the software project was complete is somehow fitting. The agony of guessing that ending two thirds of the way in makes it all the more excruciating

Reading this book had me living, breathing and literally dreaming of software projects!

I am very late into this book, it has been on my earnest “must read” pile along with Groundswell that I really, really must read. I have had it a while and my reading of it has been sluggish, as little treats such as Seth Godin’s excellent The Dip (which I have been meaning to blog about) have beaten it to my limited reading attention.

So, the point of this post wasn’t to provide a review of this most excellent book (for a review check out what Joel Spolsky has to say), I am far too late for that – although it’s recently out in paperback, so I could seem sort of current!

My point really was that occasionally we need to close the laptop, stop the Twittering and choose carefully what we do next. Take a break.