I am sitting in the window seat looking out past the slums to the Pashan lake. It seems wonderful,
I always wanted to sit like this the cool air fanning my face and writing... :)

Anyways what to write is the next question... My day to day life doesn't bear revisiting for me, let alone make an interesting reading. So writing about it is out of question. I am most passionate about.. So i will start with the one thing on which i a comfortable enough to talk for hours.

I will start with the recent book which i found interesting - Tipping Point
It is a book which i never would have thought i would have read, much less love. Till present i have limited my excursions to the lands of fantasy, mystery and sometimes spirituality. But, one of my friend told me so many interesting facts from the book that i begged him for it.

Tipping point is a book of how epidemics spread. Generally epidemic is a term which we associate
with some disease however, Malcom Gladwell (author) insists that 'epidemic' term can be used
to describe any phenomena which becomes widespread, let it be a disease or any new fashion.
Reading this one would wonder what is so interesting about the book that a person reading it just can't stop eulogising about it?
It seems like some book which will have a number of facts and a bunch of case studies thrown together to make a potion, potent, yet which no one will be willing enough to taste unless one plans to write a thesis on it...

Yet the book is riveting because the author has woven all the facts and test cases to make a
mesmerizing story out of it. For me the book was an exhilarating experience.
The name 'Tipping point' itself suggests, that peak point at which suddenly a phenomena gets picked up by a multitude of people making it tip i.e become widespread. The author describes Tipping point - 'a biography of an idea. To quote him 'It is the best way to understand the emergence of fashion trends, ebb and flow of crime waves or any number of mysterious changes that mark everyday life.

' To make sense of epidemics the author suggests that 3 factors should be considered :
1. Law of few
2. Stickiness factor
3. Power of Context
The entire book is about how these factors can actually be studied to understand why a particular fashion fad or an idea can tip. He has given many examples around these. One of the example he has cited is about Paul Revere during the American Revolution. Paul on hearing from a stable boy that the English military was on the way to crush out the Americans, spread the news overnight to all surrounding villages. Because of this, when the English came the local militia were ready for them. He contrasts this with what Paul's friend, who tried to spread the news to west of Boston and failed to make any impact. The author argues that the result was different in both
cases because they were different kinds of people - 'Law of Few'. The author describes that there are 3 type of people responsible for any word of mouth epidemic - connectors, mavens and salesmen.
Connectors are a type of people who know a lot of people. They are people who collect acquaintances as people collect stamps - its their hobby. Mavens are people who collect a lot of information. These are the people who are always gathering information and also helping others from their knowledge. Salesmen are people who will convince people inspire of themselves that a particular thing is good.Paul Revere was a person who had all these attributes. Paul was a connector and so the stable boy approached him and when in the middle of night he was spreading the news he knew whom to contact and had skill enough to convince them.

Stickiness factor is something which we come across everyday when we remember some advertisements and forget others. Gladwell has however cited some really wonderful examples about how 'Seasme Street' and 'Blues' Chess' used the Stickiness factor for educating kids through TV shows.

Another example cited by Gladwell is about a public murder where no witness came forward to help the victim. Gladwell argues here that if the murder had only one witness then that witness would have come forward to help the victim, but because there were so many nobody came, believing that the other would come. Gladwell says that this is power of context. And further goes on to explain how it could have resulted into rise of crime in New York City in 1997. When crime was on the rise in New York City in 1997, there was a lot of graffiti on the subways and a lot of fare beating. When a new in charge for the subway was appointed he took action against the graffiti ensuring that no train would leave the docking station unless it was clean. For fare beating, police in civil uniform were put and people were arrested. They found that many of the people who were fare beating had weapons on them. After these steps were taken a decline in crime rate was observed. Gadwell links both of these together explaining the 'Broken Window Theory' - If
there is one window in a building which is broken and if it is not mended, then after some days all the windows in the building will get broken'. The crime rate had increased because small felonies were not getting punished which created an atmosphere in which anti-social elements started nurturing.
Gladwell had given numerous examples around all these 3 factors but the underling idea is the same - 'Little things make a big difference'. The book is very fascinating and startling. It made not only interesting reading but i started looking around myself and found out that i was indeed in the midst of connectors, mavens and salesmen :)