Malcolm Gladwell Is a Blinking Idiot

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  jennifer.waldeck@...02/13/08 Report as spam
  1

  Idiot?

  The title of this was eye-catching, but pretty uncivilized. Was it really necessary to attack the character of an author to make an opposing point??

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  Michael Fitzgerald02/13/08 Report as spam
  2

  idiot

  Thanks for your comment. The point was not to attack Gladwell's character. I respect his writing and his thinking. The point was to reflect the argument being made by the writers whose work I was discussing. Given that, perhaps I could have chosen my headline more carefully, or phrased it as a question, and made the same point.
  
  Michael Fitzgerald

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  rajesh_rs02/13/08 Report as spam
  3

  Agree and Disagree

  I agree and disagree. It is necessary to condemn not Gladwell but the herd mentality of those who pursue a book which is interesting surely, but possibly coming along a casuist line, which could make it _useful_ to managers who want to share the next big idea in their meetings or presentations and yet want it to be something which does not involve too much effort to understand. In my experience, the only things which involve a realistic advancement or intellectual profit are those which require a significant amount of time to understand. Progress always happens from the bottom up, and this is true of intellectual progress also. When you have people coming up gallivanting with theories which are a little more than pseudo science, one always has to take them with a pinch of salt. This is a bit ironic coming from me, since I too had harped on why Blink was an important book to some of my friends. However, I realize that it did have an impact because of what it was - because it got the unthinking populace to think about a set of concepts in an accessible book.

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  Michael Fitzgerald02/13/08 Report as spam
  4

  Agree and disagree

  Thanks for your comment. I don't mean to dissuade people from Gladwell's book. There is real power in crystallizing an idea the way he has in Blink.
  
  I'm making an opposite point, that those attacking the idea of intuitive decision-making can only do so to a point. They cannot say that he is utterly wrong, and in fact end up taking a road somewhere between snap decisions and exhaustive research. As I said, that seems like common sense to me; but perhaps people really are running businesses on only snap decisions.
  
  Michael Fitzgerald

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  michaelperla@...02/13/08 Report as spam
  5

  RE: Malcolm Gladwell Is a Blinking Idiot

  Interesting article. I read Blink and actually reviewed it for an online publication. The idea of thin-slicing w/in psychology has been around for years. One needs to be careful of applying the concept without any regard for the scenario. Thin-slicing can be quite accurate when you are slicing a relatively homogeneous event that has some semblance of stability. For example, most Doctors have a relatively consistent "bedside manner" across patients and time. If you listen to pieces of their patient conversations, you can generally gather a good read on their behavior and personality. Like anything, it's one more piece of the puzzle that you can confirm or disconfirm w/ data. No Silver Bullets. The respective authors are trying to sell books or get read - they often need to differentiate their "product" in the marketplace - that includes overstatement, amplification, and embellishment. In general, it's standard practice.

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  Michael Fitzgerald02/13/08 Report as spam
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  Re: Malcolm Gladwell....

  Thanks for your comment. It's almost a truism that we're constantly searching for the quick hit decision. reflecting your point on Silver bullets, the authors I discussed acknowledge at one point that Gladwell does write about how gut decisions can be improved when they are made based on information. I'm sure they would also not deny that there are times when delaying a decision is the worst choice.
  
  Please feel free to post a link to your review of Blink.
  
  Michael

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  oliviamck02/14/08 Report as spam
  7

  Missed the idea

  I have actually read both of these books because I find it fascinating how much "Blink" has been mis-interpreted.
  
  When I read these books, I found myself really thinking the same thing about both, "Without research you cannot have a snap/"gut" decision." So, the authors are really saying the same thing.
  
  What Gladwell was pointing out (again, this is how I interpreted his book) is that you have the knowledge base somewhere in your mind which is the reason why you can make the snap decisions. There is research and logic behind it - but don't over analyze your initial gut reaction because it will most likely be correct.
  
  "Your Head is still smarter than your gut" also praises the value of research - and basing your decisions on that research.
  
  So, as I see it, they are essentially saying the same thing with two different focuses - one is the research and one is the process of trusting what you already know (and explaining why it is ok).

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  Michael Fitzgerald02/14/08 Report as spam
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  Missed the idea

  Thanks for your excellent comment. It's a delight to have people weigh in who can offer perspective after having read both books.
  
  Michael Fitzgerald

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  JMWZ02/19/08 Report as spam
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  Precisely

  I don't believe Gladwell was positing an 'intuition-over-analysis' position at all
  in his book Blink. The premise of the book was that these amazing and
  amazingly intelligent human calculations[/] happen at an incredible
  speed. It's the pace, not the process, that is amazing (and at issue) i.e.
  really fast critical analysis, not crystals and crackpot intuitive conjuring.
  Gladwell has clearly (and repeatedly) demonstrated an uncanny ability to take
  captivating concepts coupled with cutting-edge scientific research and hard
  data and make books out of all of it that are both illuminating and
  exceptionally enjoyable to read. Basically, there's no conflict here (just straw-
  man arguments and marketers it seems?shame on you Copernicus guys ; ).
  He's a flipping artist/genius, not a blinking idiot. (Though I highly doubt he
  needs the likes of me or us to defend him or his positions on all this... the
  facts stand on their own.)
  
  Hey, what did the BNET Terms of Use say about personal attacks and
  offensive material again...? (How did this thread even get posted?)
  
  "Thank you for participating in the BNET Community. Please don't post
  advertisements, profanity or personal attacks. Offending messages will be
  removed. Click here to review our Terms of Use
  [http://www.cnet.com/aboutcnet/editorial/terms.html]."

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  Michael Fitzgerald02/20/08 Report as spam
  10

  personal attack

  I really didn't mean it as a personal attack. It didn't even occur to me that it
  could be taken that way until . . . people did.
  
  Michael

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  rearl@...02/20/08 Report as spam
  11

  And you're a bigger idiot for buying any of it.

  I don't mean to denigrate any authors in particular, (in fact, I must give them
  credit for separating people from their money) but I find that reading
  most marketing books?or essays?tend to be a waste of time.
  
  There's little knowledge or?the saints be praised?insight, to be gained from
  them. Really, has anyone here with a modicum of common sense learned
  anything of value from Blink or any of its ilk?
  
  They're like magazine covers; More sizzle in the promise than is likely to be
  found inside.

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  Michael Fitzgerald02/20/08 Report as spam
  12

  taking it seriously

  As I note in my post on StopWatch marketing, i agree that marketing is not very
  interesting. That said, as I've continued in that book, the authors do a good job
  of showing where marketing does matter and how some companies have used it
  to their clear advantage (more on that in a post I hope to make today). I think
  what gets to us is the "Be Always Marketing" variation on the Alec Baldwin riff in
  Glengarry Glen Ross.
  
  as for magazines, hey now, this is business. we don't want sizzle. we want
  steak. yum.

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  twanless@...02/24/08 Report as spam
  13

  RE: Malcolm Gladwell Is a Blinking Idiot

  I always believed that Gladwell separated off and then dove deep into only one aspect of decision making -- intuition. Unfortunately the popularity of his book led to a lot of laziness -- people suffering from traintrack thinking (they depended on mental templates to make decisions) simply ascribed it to their "gut".
  
  But these guys appear to be doing the same thing as Gladwell, separating off the other side and then diving into it. The danger is that people with traintrack thinking on that side -- the data freaks -- will make similar mistakes.
  
  What you're witnessing is just the modern book selling formula -- find a line of thought or a mental model and disrupt it; then someone else will attack that line of thought.
  
  More books are sold that way, but it's really just a waste of time because the debate itself is false. Most people make decisions using a combination of both.

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  Michael Fitzgerald02/25/08 Report as spam
  14

  so why is it?

  That we buy this 'magic answer' model? The same holds true in a variety of other fields -- pharmaceutical firms seek silver bullets, investors want big returns fast, dieters want the 30=day guarantee.
  Michael Fitzgerald