The Tipping Point in action

One of the most fascinating videos I have ever seen has hideous camera work and a God-awful soundtrack.

You’ll be tempted to turn if off after 2 or 3 seconds, but this one rewards you for sticking with it for the full 3 minutes and 6 seconds, because it shows something we mostly only ever read about.

A tipping point.

For those who haven’t read Malcolm Gladwell’s book, the tipping point is the moment where a product, service or an idea suddenly becomes  popular. It’s described as ‘the level where the momentum for change becomes unstoppable’. It’s the brand that was unknown yesterday and is now on everyone’s lips.

Like Twitter.

It tipped after being featured at the 2007 South by Southwest Interactive Conference. Before the conference, the number of tweets a day was 20,000. During the conference, it jumped to 60,000, and now it’s up around 3 million tweets a day.

Or the ‘Twilight’ series, which was first published in 2005 to the delight of teenage girls, but now seems to be on everyone’s bookshelf and, with the movie release, has entered popular culture and spawned terms such as ‘Twilight Moms‘.

But back to the video (below), taken at the Sasquatch Music Festival in 2009.

While everyone sits and chats on picnic blankets, a lone man (very possibly under the influence of something illegal) starts a crazy little dance and is quickly joined by his mate. At that point their idea – ‘let’s dance’ – is not something anyone else wants buy into. Most ignore them, some look a little embarrassed for them. But these two are having a grand old time while the crowd just sits and stares.

Now it’s gotta take guts – or hard drugs – to swim against the current like these guys are.

In front of hundreds of people they’re flying in the face of the status quo. They’ve just launched a new idea and nobody is quite sure what to make of it. And we humans tend to prefer the safety of numbers. Socially, it’s much safer to do what the majority of the crowd is doing.

But look at what happens at the 1:20 mark.

Another 8 people join the group.

This idea just tipped.

Now in that group of 8, there was very likely one brave (and popular) soul who not only decided to get up and dance, but convinced 7 of his closest friends to do so too. No longer are we watching a couple of weirdos dancing in a field, we’re at a small dance party. And that clearly makes all the difference.

At 1:30,  people are running – literally running – to join in.

At 1:50, the dancers have taken over from the picnic blanketers. Get up and dance, little fellas, or you’re gonna get trod on.

At the end of the video, at least 100 people are on their feet, waving their arms in the air. We’ve gone from a few picnickers on blankets to a swarming, dancing crowd.

New ideas work this way too. They don’t necessarily take off immediately.

We have a quote on the wall here, readying: “Don’t worry about people stealing your idea. If it’s truly original you’ll have to ram it down their throats”.

But if you get the right few people behind it, it’ll take off faster than you can believe.

xk

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Tags: kate lightfoot, opinion, the tipping point, twilight, twitter