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Book Review: OUTLIERS by Malcolm Gladwell

Posted by admin on 03.02.2009 at 8:04 am

Natural talent: We hear the phrase spoken often about composers like Mozart, computer programmers like Bill Joy, software geniuses like Bill Gates, and musical groups like the Beatles. We cannot all expect to be as successful as the Beatles or Mozart because we were not born with their natural talent. Or at least so go the musings from the peanut gallery of the less-than-successful.

In his latest book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell, bestselling author of The Tipping Point and Blink, shatters many popular notions about success and proves again why he is one of the most interesting, intelligent, and talented writers of our time. Gladwell’s book helps readers understand what an outlier is-a value, observation, event, etc. that is numerically distant from the rest of the data -and why outliers matter.

In Outliers we get what business books should really be like; part psychology book, part business book, part history book, part sociology book, and part anthropology book. You don’t have to worry about going cross-eyed from reading too many business buzz words or meaningless platitudes. Outliers is chock full of amazing, interesting, and educational lessons about opportunity, success, and failure. Read more…

2 Comments » | Tagged Book Reviews, Blink, Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers, R. Stephen Prather, The Tipping Point

Blink (my quick decision)

Posted by Chip on 02.11.2009 at 7:58 am

I am currently reading books. I need to read a book. I need to work on my fidelity with books.

One book, I currently see from time to time, is entitled Blink. Blink examines the value of a quick decision. One of the studies Blink discusses involves showing a group of people short clips of teachers giving a lecture (with no audio). Another group is shown still photos of the same teachers from the clips. Both groups are asked to rank the teaching ability of the teachers based on either the photo or the silent 30 second clip.

The results showed the ratings each teacher received based on photos and clips were remarkably similar to the ratings the same professors received from their full time students after a semester of teaching. From what I have read so far, Blink supports the notion that a quick decision is often an educated decision. Although I feel this study simply illustrates our species loyalty to superficial conclusions.

Some people have a natural fear of snakes and others have a natural fear of spiders. These fears make sense considering the problems our
species has experienced over the centuries do to both species. Perhaps these fears are based on the same instinctual knowledge that
allows us to make smart quick decisions.

The human brain is the product of years of learning things the only way us humans truly learn anything…the hard way.

I discovered my fear of electricity by touching an electric fence. Twenty minutes later I discovered that it is impossible to touch a electric fence
twice. My curiosity made me want to “make sure it was an electric fence” but my brain would not allow my hand to make contact.

Just as I learned not to touch the fence again perhaps the human race has learned from collective experience and perhaps there is something to that gut feeling that helps us make life’s quick decisions. Although I have only read the fist 50 pages of Blink, I feel I am able to review the book with confidence using the “blink of an eye” decision making the book examines.