Tipping Point


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Tipping Point
How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
By Malcolm Gladwell 

Related Blog Posts
Revisiting Malcolm Gladwell
Posted Dec. 14, 2011 8:09 a.m. by sally-haldorson
In - 800 CEO Read Blog

One of the most fascinating trends to follow in business literature is the continual expansion of what a business book actually is. The parameters have widened significantly from the influential management and theory books of the 1980s. While there are still books made available each year on such practical matters as team building, developing a social media strategy, making a new hire, and sensible budgeting, there are also a great number of books that study decision-making from a neuroscience angle or theorize about how social and environmental influences affect human behavior. Malcolm Gladwell is a pioneer of this type of book.

In The 100 Best Business Books of All Time review of The Tipping Point, Jack writes:

The Tipping Point is the type of book that helps us make sense of the world around us. It is a practical, nonacademic guide to the social epidemics going on around us, and perhaps to how we might take advantage of them. As people try to stay in step with a rapidly evolving business landscape, they are turning to journalistic books that bring the big picture into focus, like Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat, Gladwell's next book, Blink, and Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner's Freakonomics. Not only is the context broader, but the writing is significantly better than in traditional business books. The Tipping Point is the book that started this trend, perhaps its own epidemic, and continues to carry the banner as the best.

And "the best" it nearly is. In our compilation of six years of data* from Nielsen BookScan of the 10 top selling business books, The Tipping Point comes in second (behind the aforementioned Friedman title.) Gladwell's Blink? Well, it is 3rd on the list. It may only be a matter of time before Gladwell's 2008 book, Outliers, makes the list.

If it has been awhile since you've revisited Gladwell's writing, or you'd like to introduce someone to it, now all three of Gladwell's outstanding books are available in a new boxed set from Hachette, just in time to be the perfect gift for the business thinker in your life.

*1/4/04-11/14/10



Jeff Hayzlett's Business Library
Posted April 27, 2010 8:35 a.m. by dylan
In - 800 CEO Read Blog

If you know who Jeff Hayzlett is, it is probably from his appearances on television or his Twitter footprint. But the chief marketing officer of Kodak is now venturing into the wonderful world of analog with his new book, The Mirror Test: Is Your Business Really Breathing?, being released by Business Plus in May. And he has done something in that book that I wish more authors would do. He has included an appendix in which he lists his "Business Library 'Must' List." It gives you an idea of what has influenced him most over the years (and, just maybe, an idea of what to expect from his book). It includes:

Not only does his book get extra points from me for including a list of his favorites, Hayzlett himself gets extra credit for using a Garrison Keillor quote to introduce the list: "A book is a gift you can open again and again."



Matthew May's Five Books That Defined the Decade
Posted Jan. 14, 2010 3:49 a.m. by dylan
In - 800 CEO Read Blog

In Pursuit of Elegance author Matthew May reads around 200 books a year. That means he's read approximately 2000 books since the year 2000. Of those, he has picked five that he feels defined the last decade, writing "these 'big idea' books stand out because not only did they help us better understand the world, they gave us a new lens through which to view it."

Though you're picks may look slightly different, it's a difficult list to argue with, and one I like all the more due to the fact that—as Jack and Todd did in the 100 Best Business Books of All Time—he eschewed Friedman's more popular The World is Flat for The Lexus and the Olive Tree.

To read more about why May chose these books, head over to the original post: Five Books That Defined the Decade.



800-CEO-READ's Decade-in-Review
Posted Dec. 31, 2009 9:45 a.m. by sally-haldorson
In - 800 CEO Read Blog

It's an admittedly worn device to use the alphabet to organize one's thoughts, but when reflecting over the past decade and trying to distill the most notable events and objects that affected our company and also the publishing industry and business sector into a brief blog post, I found such a device to be quite helpful. As Jack put it when we initially discussed writing a decade-in-review post, not only is it like opening a can of worms, it seems like whenever one harkens back to the Millenium, one can't help but get sidetracked into thoughts about 9/11. But of course there were many more ups and downs that we've all been a victim and/or a participant in, and this list is an attempt to do that chaos a little bit of justice.

Amazon (may not have its origins in this decade, but grew from 1.6B in 1999 to 19.1 in 2008; Annual 800ceoread Business Book Awards (Inaugural 2007); Erika Anderson, founder of Proteus International, Inc., author of Growing Great Employees, and great friend of 800-CEO-READ who introduced us to a new in-office vocabulary (2007)

Blue Ocean Strategy (our decade's Best Seller, 2005); Bill George, author of three 800-CEO-READ best sellers, Authentic Leadership (2004), True North (2007) and Seven Lessons for Leading in Crisis

ChangeThis (website presenting ideas via manifesto PDFs adopted by 800-CEO-READ from Seth Godin, 2005)

Disasters, natural and otherwise (Dot Com Bust, 2000; 9/11, 2001; tsunami, 2004; Hurricane Katrina, 2005; banking, 2009)

Enron bankruptcy (2001); Eight years of George W. Bush (2000-2008); Election of Barack Obama (2008)

Farewell, Schwartz Bookshops (2009); free/freemium changes everything; Facebook leads the herd.

Good to Great by Jim Collins; Green, Global and Google become top trends

Heath Brothers’ Made to Stick (2007) introduced us to a new language for the creation of ideas

InBubbleWrap offers free business books from 800-CEO-READ (2005); In the Books, 800-CEO-READ's yearly review of business books (2007); It's Your Ship by D. Michael Abrashoff (2002), an 800-CEO-READ bestseller with legs.

JackCovertSelects reviews (Inaugural 2000); Joy Panos Stauber, design extraordinaire and great friend of 800-CEO-READ.

Kindle (2007) and the advancing threat (revelation?) of digital books.

Lay-Offs (2009), Levitt & Dubner’s Freakonomics (2005), The Long Tail by Chris Anderson (2006); 800-CEO-READ's LeaveSmarter events (2006) kick off in Milwaukee.

Mega-Sales of Oprah’s Recommendations, Harry Potter & the Twilight series, lend hopefulness that books still beguile.

New York (book launch, company party, annual awards fete, 2009)

The 100 Business Books of All Time (written & anguished over during 2008, published 2009)

PechaKucha – 800-CEO-READ becomes the Milwaukee host for this exciting new way to present ideas in 20 images in 20 seconds (2008).

QbQ! The Question behind the Question by John Miller (2004), an 800-CEO-READ best seller that tapped into the perceived absence of personal accountability.

Rich Dad books populate the decade as the best selling personal finance books; Rehiring & Remodeling (2009)

Seth Godin (Unleashing the Idea Virus 2001 to Purple Cow 2003 to Tribes 2008); Strengths-based management books and strategies from Gallup.

Todd Sattersten (consultant 2004 - coauthor, 2008 - president, 2009), The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell (2000); Twitter

Used books on Amazon (2001); The Ultimate Question by Fred Reichheld (2006) became the basis of some important questions we asked of our company and our customers.

Visit 800ceoread's Daily Blog for daily business insight (2001).

Wiki-anything; The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki (2004) and The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman (2005), two books that changed the way we think.

X-treme changes to news and publishing industry

You're a blueberry (2008), an 800-CEO-READ inside joke that encapsulates the relationships of the 800-CEO-READ employees.

Zero percent. The likelihood that 2010 will be anything but another exhilarating ride.

Okay, so in terms of adhering to the alphabetization of this list, some are a bit of a cheat. And some inclusions are events that had a direct effect on our company internally, but most were important occurrences felt by everyone in business. If there is anything I missed, feel free to add in comments.

Happy New Year everyone!



Friday Links
Posted Dec. 4, 2009 11:02 a.m. by dylan
In General Business - 800 CEO Read Blog

◊ Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody, wrote a compelling post on the future of bookstores called Local Bookstores, Social Hubs, and Mutualization on the 17th that we missed. Here is an important paragraph to whet your appetite:

Online bookselling improves on many of the core functions of a bookstore, not just price and breadth of available books, but ways of searching for books, and of getting recommendations and context. On the other hand, the functions least readily replicated on the internet—providing real space in a physical location occupied by living, breathing people—have always been treated as side effects, value created by the stores and captured by the community, but not priced directly into the transactions.

His conclusion is that book sellers should be looking at the nonprofit model to stay in business. (I can assure you, many book sellers I know would say they're already functioning as a "nonprofit" of sorts already—and have been for years. We're not exactly the most affluent segment of society.)

◊ Cory Doctorow weighed in on the topic on Wednesday with some half-formed thoughts on one future for bookselling (his words, not mine), pointing to the "ends of the market [that] are ripe for heavy localization." Mr. Doctorow is an especially interesting addition to the conversation, as he has been at the forefront of authors getting their books to readers online. If you're a book seller, or just love bookstores, I would highly recommend both authors' takes on the situation. (And thanks to Vroman's Bookstore for the heads up on both.)

◊ If you're looking for a success story from the book selling arena, pick up the December issue of Inc. Magazine and turn to page 86. (I know, I know... so analogue, but I'll post the link when the story is online.) There you'll find the inspiring saga of Portland's Broadway Books by John Brant.

◊ If bookstores do go extinct, Jacket Copy's Carolyn Kellogg may have found the answer—phone booth libraries.

◊ NPR's Morning Edition reminds us that You Can't Put A Bow On An E-Book.

◊ Speaking of NPR and bookstores, here are NPR's bestsellers of the week, compiled "from weekly surveys of close to 500 independent bookstores nationwide in collaboration with the American Booksellers Association:" Hardcovers | Paperbacks

◊ The New York Times Book Review has chosen their 10 Best Books of 2009. Liaquat Ahamed's Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World was the sole book that would fit in the business category on the list.

◊ The Onion's A.V. Club has posted its best books and its best films of the decade. The business books that made their list are:

  • Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt & Steven J. Dubner, published originally by William Morrow & Company in 2005.

  • Nickel And Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich, published originally in 2001 by Metropolitan Books

  • The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, originally published in 2000 by Little Brown & Company

  • The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki, originally published by Doubleday Books in 2004

◊ I'm really interested in Anna Jane Grossman's Obsolete: An Encyclopedia of Once-Common Things Passing Us By, illustrated by James Gulliver Hancock, but since we've not received a copy here (ahem, Hachette, ahem), I guess I'll have to go out and buy one. Until then, the Washington Post's Jacket Copy has provided us with a little fix of Ms. Grossman discussing executive chairs, laughtracks and payphones.

◊ Niall Ferguson, author of The Ascent of Money: An Economic History of the World wonders if "economic weakness is endangering our global power." Read his recent article in Newsweek to learn more.

◊ And, finally, in celebration of the second anniversary of their online store, Nonesuch Records is having a sale. In a nod to vinyl, everything is now 33 1/3% off the list price. They have an eclectic mix of musicians, from the Americana of Wilco and Emmylou Harris to the wonderful Oumou Sangare and wonderfully bizarre Alarm Will Sound. They also have Bobby McFerrin’s first album in their catalog, giving me an excuse to post the video below, which we first came across on tiny gigantic some months ago.

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.