Malcolm Gladwell, who has said in an interview that he writes to try out ideas<p><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122671211614230261.html" rel="nofollow">http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122671211614230261.html</a><p>"Q: Do you worry that you extrapolate too much from too little?<p>"A: No. It's better to err on the side of over-extrapolation. These books are playful in the sense that they regard ideas as things to experiment with. I'm happy if somebody reads my books and reaches a conclusion that is different from mine, as long as the ideas in the book cause them to think. You have to be willing to put pressure on theories, to push the envelope. That's the fun part, the exciting part. If you are writing an intellectual adventure story, why play it safe? I'm not out to convert people. I want to inspire and provoke them."<p>is good, while trying out ideas, at crediting his sources. Any reader of a Malcolm Gladwell book (as I know, from being a reader of the book Outliers) can check the sources, and decide from there what other sources to check and what other ideas to play with. Gladwell doesn't purport to write textbooks, but I give him a lot of credit for finding interesting scholarly sources that haven't had enough attention in the popular literature. He is equaled by very few authors as a story-teller who can tie ideas together in a thought-provoking assembly.
It's plainly evident that as journalists and pop- social- science writers go, Gladwell is spectacularly successful. This article posits that the reason for that success is that he has hit on a formula of catchy titles and appeals to lucrative audiences.<p>Do any of you actually believe this? If so, square that belief with the fact that the author of this blog post could clearly apply the same formula. Why isn't he spectacularly successful too?<p>My guess: however easy this blogger thinks it is to come up with the theme of a Gladwell book, it is far, far harder to write that book as compellingly as Gladwell does. Put differently: Gladwell is just an extremely talented writer.<p>Jab at him all you want for the superficiality of the ideas he's trafficking in, or for being beholden to corporate sponsors. I'm not sticking up for what he writes. But what he writes isn't the key to his success. Gladwell could write the phone book and it'd be more convincing than this post was.
Hilarious and accurate.<p>The biggest benefit to constructing Gladwell books is that everyone is able to discuss the book at cocktail parties even if they haven't read it. This means that people can put the book on their shelf and feel as if they've read it, without actually having to do the work of reading it. Genius, really.
I bet you could go through the same process with Thomas Friedman:<p>1. Come up with a principle long-since scientifically proven false.<p><pre><code> "Hmm, how about 'The World is Flat'"
</code></pre>
2. Write a book called "My Dull, Platitudinous Travel Diary"<p><pre><code> "Indians in call centers can talk with Americans! Amazing!"
</code></pre>
3. Now change the title of that book to the long-since disregarded principle.<p><pre><code> "Everyone will want to read this because the editors at the NYT are
inexplicably required to keep me on staff, offering me undeserved
credibility for the rest of time!"</code></pre>
I'm glad to see that someone commented his S.H.A.M.E project link in the comments down under the original article, to the point that it's worth re-linking here: <a href="http://shameproject.com/profile/malcolm-gladwell-2/" rel="nofollow">http://shameproject.com/profile/malcolm-gladwell-2/</a><p>I read the Tipping point and found it quite an interesting book, but I've not bought anymore of his books after I had read his profile/sources linked above.
This was pretty funny. The concept of his books are pretty cheesy but I think what makes him successful is that he actually writes the books vs. sitting around and poking holes in it.
This reminds me of The Malcolm Gladwell Book Generator:
<a href="http://malcolmgladwellbookgenerator.com/" rel="nofollow">http://malcolmgladwellbookgenerator.com/</a>
It's disappointing to have this as #1 story in HN. Hacking is about doing stuff, not putting down (or hyping) people who do stuff. I never had any trouble simply avoiding Gladwell when I wanted to.
Gladwell says himself, in his own books, that he writes not to change the minds of his readers, but to make his readers think.<p>The stories he presents alongside the ideas he presents are just illustrations. Every situation, whether it's Bill Gates' success, the problem of choosing NFL Quarterbacks, or the rise of Hush Puppies has an incredible amount of variables that can never be fully grasped.<p>The common theme of Gladwell bashers seems to be that they take every idea presented as if he were presenting it as unilateral truth. I mean, just take a look at this Quora page: <a href="http://www.quora.com/Malcolm-Gladwell-author/What-are-some-claims-by-Malcolm-Gladwell-that-are-incorrect" rel="nofollow">http://www.quora.com/Malcolm-Gladwell-author/What-are-some-c...</a><p>If you look at the top answer there, the writer is clearly missing the point of Gladwell's writing on a number of issues. The one complaint about his writing I've seen the most often is about the 10,000 hour rule. The writer of the Quora answer puts it this way: "[Gladwell is wrong in saying] That 10,000 hours of practice will turn you into a genius on the order of Mozart or Michael Jordan".<p>He never says anything like that in Outliers! The main arguments that I got out of the 10,000 hour rule is that the most successful people of any area tend to follow a similar trend: born into an exceptional situation to lead to greatness in that area, dedicated practice for thousands of hours, above average IQ (but IQ past ~120 is not too important). Saying that dedicated practice alone will turn anyone into the top 0.001% of a given profession is absurd, and Gladwell doesn't say that at all.<p>Maybe if Gladwell bashers stopped taking everything he writes as if he were prescribing ideas of thought, they could enjoy his compelling writing and thought-provoking ideas.
Amazing how you could change a few phrases here and there and turn this straight into a Michael Lewis how to.<p>Just trade business for high finance with a pinch of major league sports and spend your anecdotes on overwrought descriptions of your main character's idiosyncrasies.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Lewis" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Lewis</a>
I had never heard the last aphorism in the OP before; it got the biggest laugh out of me:<p><i>Remember the old joke among social scientists – “Predict the future? It’s hard enough to predict the past!” However, those social scientists haven’t realized that it’s easy to predict the past as long as you’re talking about one story at a time.</i>
I /kind of/ respected Malcolm Gladwell until I found out he is just a shill for big tobacco.<p><a href="http://shameproject.com/profile/malcolm-gladwell-2/" rel="nofollow">http://shameproject.com/profile/malcolm-gladwell-2/</a>
I had my own hypothesis of a Gladwell recipe: he takes a well-executed research paper, and expands on the references, and their references, and then adds links to other pop-science books. The original idea could be told more precisely within 15 pages, as exemplified by the journal article, and his 300 page books give little glimpses of that clarity when they are verbatim from the original, and mud the water elsewhere.