Comments on: Malcolm Gladwell Live!

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 13:23:30 +0000

The linkbait post left me feeling yucky; surely this is not a compliment to his public speaking abilities! Noted that a couple of relevant articles have gone up elsewhere: Priced to Sell in which Gladwell reviews Chris Anderson's new book 'Free' in The New Yorker. John Gruber of Daring Fireball gets a bit fresh here and gets a slap from Anderson.

By: peacockbird

peacockbird — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 08:43:25 +0000

Thanks for your comment. I wasn’t necessarily looking for dense & complex, just “sound”. IMHO if you charge people to come and hear you speak and sell books then there has to be more on offer.
I felt short changed.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with common sense and simple ideas. I’m a great one for saying things simply, but don’t like it went people claim to be profound and dress it up with rhetoric.

A good post on Gladwell from Mark
http://markhigginson.com/blog/

By: kelvin newman

kelvin newman — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 09:59:40 +0000

I think the thing with Gladwell is it depends on where you’re coming from.

If you want a easy-ish good read that sort of relies on common sense but backs it up with a couple of nice stories and a little research he is perfect.

If you’re looking for a dense and complex argument the work he offers ain’t really gonna cut it.

That’s not too say he isn’t capable of the later but the way his books read and after this talk he seems to be firmly in the first camp.