About the Author: Sheri Harmer graduated from Kansas State University with a bachelor's degree (1985) and a master's degree (1994). She has been teaching business education courses at Marysville High School for 16 years and is currently enrolled in a doctoral program at KSU. She can be reached at sharmer@cjnetworks.com.

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The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell, Time Warner Bookmark. New York, NY (288 pages). Hardcover price: $25. The book may be ordered through the on-line book companies.

Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point examines the players and factors that create a "tipping point" where change occurs. Gladwell does not offer a "quick fix" or "how to" book for those educators and others who strive for change. Instead, he presents the process of change and all its complexity.

He divides the players in change into three distinct types: the connectors, the mavens, and the salesmen. The connector is the socially astute person who interacts so naturally and personally with so many others that he or she has a wide network of people who can be subject to his or her influence. Another change agent, the maven, has enough knowledge that others trust his or her judgment as a resource for change. The final type of player is the salesman. Salesmen use subtlety to make others respond to them by their sensitivity to expressions and moods.

Gladwell believes that certain factors in addition to these players of change can create a tipping point. One of these factors is the stickiness factor--how can a message make enough of an impression to stay with a listener or reader. The producers of the children's show Sesame Street found that stickiness increased with minor changes. For example, mixing animated characters and real people dramatically increased the level of a toddler's attention and retention.

Gladwell terms another factor affecting change as the power of context. A person's actions are influenced by his or her context--the environment. As an example, Gladwell turns to the New York subways that had become chaotic, crime-infested systems of transportation. George Kelling--a consultant with the New York Transit Authority--set out to change the subway environment. He cleaned the subways, and he stopped minor crimes that had been thought too insignificant to deal with. The resulting order and the subway cleanliness gave a new context--a tipping point that created a dramatic decrease in crime.

Gladwell points out that change begins with innovators--the ones who embrace change partially because it is change. The next group on board is the early adaptor, who is the more respected member of the community who is willing to take a chance as long as that chance seems plausible. The early adaptors will generally "tweak" the original idea or product in order to make it more mainstream and, therefore, more acceptable to others. Gladwell points out that there is a "chasm" between the innovators and the early adaptors. That chasm is bridged by the maven, who learns much about the new idea/product; the connector, who spreads the word about the new product/idea; and the salesman, who makes others see the ideas as plausible.

To implement change, therefore, one needs to be aware of those people who are change agents, and one needs to study how to make ideas "sticky" and create a "context" where that idea can "tip." If these factors seem complicated, then Gladwell has made his point. This book is a must-read for the educational leader who wants to solve the complex problems that confront education. Gladwell confirms what most educators have long believed: no solution that involves change is simple; however, Gladwell offers immense insights on how change can be affected by those aware of and sensitive to change agents and change factors.