The Tipping Point: A Review You may know about the ripple or butterfly effect, a phenomenon associated with the onset of rapid events that follow simultaneously after one another. A term coined by Everett Rogers in 1962, a similar sensation known as the “tipping point” is defined as “the moment of critical mass, the threshold, or the boiling point”. In his 2000 debut novel The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell explores how little things in our world can make a big difference, ranging from the outbreak of popularity and sales of Hush Puppies shoes to the spread of syphilis in 20th century Baltimore. According to Gladwell, there are three agents of change that lead to a tipping point — the law of the few, the stickiness factor, and the power of context. The law of the few explains how the few socially gifted persons in a society are able to be the catalyst to a social epidemic: these people include connectors, mavens, and salesmen. The stickiness factor describes how certain things stay wi...