Remembering the Tipping Point
Sometimes history changes right in front of us, and we hardly notice it. Opp Now cofounder takes a look at how social and digital media have upended (for better and worse) traditional notions of how ideas and conventional wisdom get created.
I was raised--academically, at least--under the shadow of Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point. Remember that book? Talked alot about the creation of market acceptance and how new ideas propagate.
And a main point was his Law of the Few.
Which posited that a small cadre of leaders--connectors, mavens, and salespeople--set conventional wisdom, and sheep-like, people followed.
And the big takeaway for comms professionals at the time was: Influence the influencers.
But something happened between 2000 and now. Ironically, the rise of social media and 24x7 doomscrolling dismantled the influencer paradigm they once supported. And now we're left with--instead of a pyramid of
idea power--an amorphous blob, constantly reforming, of asymmetrical ideas, conspiracies, and innovation.
And AI simply adds another wild card.
It will take some time for media, politicians, and artists to come to terms with this new, decentralized, leaderless cultural & news environment. And there will be much rear-guard pushback. But be advised: the deconstruction of top-down idea-formation is well-advanced, and yet another power pillar of the past centuries isrubble.
--Christopher Escher for the Opp Now team
This weekend's new stories:
The Tipping Point never really tipped
"The Tipping Point's ideas were once novel and bracing--but have hardened over the years into a structural cliche, a storytelling tease designed not just to defer intellectual satisfaction, but to suggest a join-the-dots hidden narrative that will eventually cohere into a revelatory unifying theme. That moment never quite arrives."
--The Guardian book review
It's intensity, not impressions, which drives change
"There’s long been an obsession among climate/energy folks with finding a message that appeals to the “middle” (about which myths abound, but that’s a subject for another time) or the climate undecided/uncommitted/skeptical. Since honest (read: terrifying) talk about the severity of climate change doesn’t win over the uncommitted or disinterested, it is deemed unhelpful to that effort and scolded whenever it pops up.
"As I’ve said so many times, though, what drives social change and shifts politics is not broad-based support but intensity."
--Dave Roberts quoted in Waging NonViolence
Stickiness rules
"Gladwell’s third rule, The Power of Context, says the current social environment has to be ripe to embrace a specific principle or concept. As I write this, I have on my desk a book proposal by an airline pilot on what to do if you are a passenger on a hijacked airplane. Undoubtedly the social environment today is more receptive to this book’s subject matter than it would have been prior to September 11,
2001."
--Pubspot
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