Before going into an in-depth review, just to ensure a better and more meaningful reading experience, let me give you an outside view of how Malcolm Gladwell non-fictions are formulated and constructed. 

Gladwell dissects a singular idea into several pieces for better comprehension of the readers; explains those segmented theories in a lucid language and further reinforces the understanding by including various interesting real-life scenarios and case-studies. In this concise yet elaborate portrayal of an idea, Gladwell also relates his brainchild to practical, real-life scenarios where the application and adoption of the idea can prove handy and effective to ordinary people doing day-to-day stuff at schools, workplaces or businesses. 

That being told, let's have a sneak peek of the subtitle of the book: "How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference". How so, you ask? Well, the book begins with the conception of an idea called "The Social Epidemic", or simply to put it, word of mouth. We all see the practical implication of this idea yet we remain mostly unaware of how powerful the concept can be. 

How does an idea become contagious to such an extent so as to start a social epidemic? Well, Gladwell argues, that to understand how an idea/endeavour/business concept becomes a social epidemic i.e. becomes successful/popular/trendy, we have to dissect the whole idea of the tipping point of a social epidemic into three concepts: The Power of the Few, The Stickiness Factor and The Power of Context.     

For making any idea click, it depends on not a lot, but a few distinct people: The Connectors, the Mavens and the Salesmen. The Mavens digs out the potential of any idea; the Connectors, with their enormous social reach, spread it like a contagious epidemic and the Salesmen convince more and more people to adopt it in their daily lives. It was because of these three that American shoe brand Hush Puppies made a comeback after being lost for years. The comeback was all because some hip kids back in downtown Manhattan started wearing it again – they made it "tip", throughout America.

The idea can't just survive through word of mouth, and that's where the Stickiness Factor comes in. It has to cling on to people's minds. TV shows for kids like "The Sesame Street" or "Blue's Clues" were able to connect with kids and become popular among them because of this factor. The thing is, an idea doesn't initially have to be sticky – you can make it sticky, and thus, popular. One episode of "Blue's Clues" was telecast five times in a row so that kids were able to comprehend those episodes fully and learn from them. The ideas of the episodes were reinforced in their minds by the Stickiness Factor.

Last but not the least, "The Power of Context". Sometimes situations or environments surrounding an idea would dictate whether it would tip or not. In the late 1980s, the New York Subways were infiltrated with all kinds of crime. The stations and cars were laden with grim graffities everywhere. All of a sudden, the crime rate began to diminish drastically. Why, and how? For that you have to understand "The Power of Context". And for that you have to read Gladwell's classic debut non-fiction "The Tipping Point". I promise you, it's going to be one of the best things you've ever read.

Ishtiaq Ahmed is a travel enthusiast who devours fictions, dreams of Paris and writes only when his brain parasites need a place to crash. Can be reached at Ishtiaq_Ahmed_26@yahoo.com