Context In Malcolm Gladwell's 'Connectors And Salesman'

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Malcolm Gladwell explains that there are three reasons a product tipped: the law of the few (mavens, connectors and salesmen), the stickiness factor (people need to remember about the product) and last, but not the least, the power of context.

In this assignment, I will focus on the third reason, explain what the term “context” means, how his author defines it, what examples he gave. Then, I will apply his theory on an idea that tipped, identify the context and explain how context enables the idea tip.

Malcolm Gladwell defines context as the “conditions and circumstances of the times and places in which they occur”. Implicitly, what he explains is that, something could tip in France, but not in the USA, today or in ten years, or not at all. It depends on the culture of the country, the people who lives in it, their beliefs. It also depends of their mentality and their financial situation, if the country is in crisis or not. …show more content…

Roughly speaking, what makes a product tipped is not necessarily the reason you would have thought to in the first place. For instance, for a phone, it could be something else than its performance or its design.

In his book, Malcolm Gladwell takes the example of criminality in New-York in the 90's. Then, it drops dramatically and the author explains that it is due to the action of two men : G. Kelling, W. Bratton and D. Gunn. These bright men decided to put in practice the broken window theory. So D.Gunn takes a bold risk and focus on the graffiti.

From 1984 to 1990, every car with graffiti painted over it were “reclaimed” and the graffiti removed. A “dirty” could not be used for the metro. The idea was to discourage the young vandals who were vandalizing the subway. Indeed, it takes them three nights to “paint” a car, according to D.Gunn. And before every one could see it, the graffitis were

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