"We have, in our minds, a very specific, biological notion of what contagiousness means. But if there can be epidemics of crime or of fashion, there must be all kinds of things just as contagious as viruses. Have you ever thought about yawning, for instance? Yawning is a surprisingly powerful act. Just because you read word "yawning" in the previous two sentences - and the two addition "yawns" in this sentence - a good number of you will probably yawn within the next few minutes."

"If you're reading this in a public place, and you've just yawned, chances are that a good proportion of everyone who saw you yawn is now yawning too, and a good proportion of the people watching the people who watched you yawn are now yawning as well, and on and on, in an ever-widening, yawning circle."

"Yawning is incredibly contagious."

The quote above is from one of my more recent reads "The Tipping Point", and offers a profound look at how the simplest and smallest concepts can emerge - sometimes without warning - to become social epidemics or trends.

Have you ever wondered how trends seem to come out of nowhere - one day a few people are participating and then the next, you can't go 10 minutes without seeing or hearing about this next big thing? The tipping point, written by Malcolm Gladwell, explains this very phenomenon using real-life case-studies ranging from the decrease of crime in New York City to the rise and fall of Airwalk shoes. Actually, some of my personal favorite examples found in this book included the rise of Hush Puppies, how the show Sesame Street started a "literacy epidemic", and why, of the two riders sent out to alert Massachusetts that the British were coming, only one, Paul Revere, is remembered.

The Tipping Point, in my opinion, is a must read for anyone involved with marketing and/or business-related studies. I found each of Gladwell's many points to be well-researched, well-presented, and probably more importantly a great demonstration on how very small changes can have dramatic effects on people's behavior, as well as how and why small groups of people can end up having a large influence on others. Overall I felt that the book was an easy read - probably a weekend for most people - in which Gladwell has an amazing ability to take very complex ideas and provide them in an easy-to-follow format. As a search marketer, I was able to make several "cross-over connections" using his ideas and integrating them with real life search engine marketing practices.

I sincerely recommend that you make this book a well-used part of your business library.