Now that he s gotten us talking about the viral life of ideas and the power of gut reactions, Malcolm Gladwell poses a more provocative question in Outliers: why do some people succeed, living remarkably productive and impactful lives, while so many more never reach their potential? Challenging our cherished belief of the self-made man, he makes the democratic assertion that superstars don t arise out of nowhere, propelled by genius and talent: they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot. Examining the lives of outliers from Mozart to Bill Gates, he builds a convincing case for how successful people rise on a tide of advantages, some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky. Outliers can be enjoyed for its bits of trivia, like why most pro hockey players were born in January, how many hours of practice it takes to ma...

#Some Great Insights (2008-11-26) I was a big fan of Galdwell`s first two books, the Tipping Point, and Blink. In Outliers, Gladwell tries to give insight into the story of successful people. A few of the insights such as demographics,luck, and the 10,000 hour rule, will not come as a surprise to most people. I think we are all aware that superstar athletes, and great musicians spend countless hours practicing. A little luck does not hurt either. However, there are some insights that are quite startling. The culture of honor in Kentucky, and the ethnic aspect of plane crashes, real...

The best way to understand the dramatic transformation of unknown books into bestsellers, or the rise of teenage smoking, or the phenomena of word of mouth or any number of the other mysterious changes that mark everyday life, writes Malcolm Gladwell, is to think of them as epidemics. Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do. Although anyone familiar with the theory of memetics will recognize this concept, Gladwell s The Tipping Point has quite a few interesting twists on the subject. For example, Paul Revere was able to galvanize the forces of resistance so effectively in part because he was what Gladwell calls a Connector: he knew just about everybody, particularly the revolutionary leaders in each of the towns that he rode through. But Revere wasn t just the man with the biggest Rolodex in colonial Boston, he was also a Maven who gathered extensive information about the British. He knew what was going on and he knew exactly whom to tell. The phenome...

#Excellent Book (2008-03-03) In this book, Gladwell does a great job of explaining the tipping points of trends, fads, disease, etc, -basically any event imaginable. If we look close enough in our everyday lives we ll see the tipping point. After reading this book you should be able to see where it is exactly (almost) that mistakes are made, or good decisions are made. Great read -an eye opener for sure! (The idea is what attracts me as opposed to those that rate a book on the writing style, etc, especially for this style of information book. )

#I Just Tipped! (2008-01-17) When I published my own book a while back, my daughter gave me The Tipping Point to read. Even though I am a spiritual author, and generally only read books by other spiritual authors, I found this secular book to be very inspiring. In my work, I teach that there is a next right step that you are always being divinely guided to take -- a step that will help you fulfill your hearts desires in an effortless manner. That step is invariably a small step -- a tiny step, even. But those tiny steps, when taken one after another, prove to be miraculously effecti...

#The Hard Part Is Choosing What To Do First (2007-11-08) I was drawn into this book from the moment I cracked the spine. Each and every example had a very compelling start and story that left you wanting to talk to someone about what you had just learned. The topics are varied and range from Paul Revere s network to a syphilis outbreak in Baltimore to Blues Clues the children s t. v. program that made small changes to Sesame Street s premise and is revolutionized preschool education. Every time I took a break from reading I was thinking of how I could apply this the little things m...

#A fun and very interesting book (2007-05-30) I liked The Tipping Point very much. Gladwell does an excellent job explaining how Word of Mouth epidemics/Fads start, who contributes to creating it and who spreads the fad to make it known worldwide. I learned alot regarding teen smoking and how we have the power to counteract this horrible habit. In essence, Tipping Point is about social epidemics and how even the little things that people would seem to think are irrelevent may create big changes. Tipping Point is for the reader who is curious about how ppl think and how we as a whole...

#100 Monkeys Revisited (2007-03-31) Tipping Point is an excellent read. An engaging style sprinkled with humor and human interest make it flow easily. It reminds me of the concept of 100 Monkeys, whereby an idea gets to a critical point and suddenly becomes omnipresent. Anyone in business or marketing will enjoy the read and practical suggestions, direct and indirect, about promotion. Gladwell shows us all how easily our collective and individual psyches are manipulated. Budding psychologists and those interested in our inherent foibles will find the read entertaining and informat...

Naomi Klein s The Shock Doctrine advances a truly unnerving argument: historically, while people were reeling from natural disasters, wars and economic upheavals, savvy politicians and industry leaders nefariously implemented policies that would never have passed during less muddled times. As Klein demonstrates, this reprehensible game of bait-and-switch isn t just some relic from the bad old days. It s alive and well in contemporary society, and coming soon to a disaster area near you. At the most chaotic juncture in Iraq civil war, a new law is unveiled that will allow Shell and BP to claim the country s vast oil reserves…, Immediately following September 11, the Bush Administration quietly outsources the running of the War on Terror to Halliburton and Blackwater…, After a tsunami wipes out the coasts of Southeast Asia, the pristine beaches are auctioned off to tourist resorts…, New Orleans residents, scattered from Hurricane Katrina, discover that their public hous...

#Wow - now all the pieces of the puzzle fit (2008-10-21) Probably the most important book of our times. I was already aware of many of the events written in the book, but did not realize to what extent they are all related. Clear and well-written. Everyone can understand this. Although some free-market ideologues may not like it, they cannot refute it - too many verified and confirmed FACTS. Klein has linked the policies of the last 30 years together. . . put the pieces of the puzzle together. Now it is up to us to do something about it, or watch while our countries ...

#Could it be... a novel and interesting thesis? (2008-09-15) I ve enjoyed Naomi Klein s writing ever since No Logo, but I must admit that I find that she can be hit and miss. In this book, she scores a straight-out hit. What I enjoy so thoroughly is that she manages to do so with a fascinating thesis: comparing the effects of electric shock on the human mind and body with the effects of disasters upon the collective social psyche, and how the unscrupulous attempt to use this vulnerability to their advantage. Indeed, in some cases, as Klein points out, the people doing the electros...

#The second colonial pillage and the essence of dehumanization (2008-08-31) Naomi Klein unveils in this hard-hitting book (naming names) extremely clearly the economic utopia and the shameful realities resulting from the neo-liberal policies of the Chicago School of Economics, also called `The Washington Consensus . WhatIts defenders claim that the free market is a perfect scientific system, in which individuals acting on their own self-interested desire, create the maximum benefit for all. But, as no country or city wanted to implement deliberately their policies, its powerful fundamen...

#Washington Consensus Exposed (2008-08-09) The shock therapy advocated by neoliberal conservatives in the US is well-documented in most academic circles but Naomi Klein expands the criticisms to a wider much more general audience in The Shock Doctrine. The book is long by most popular non-fiction standards and certainly she stretches her argument in a few cases to make her point, but overall the book is well-researched with the sections on Iraq and New Orleans being the most effective. The backlash against Milton Friedman and his Chicago School of Economics is perhaps the greatest whe...

#An uproarious wake up call! (2008-06-22) It s the economy, stupid. Do you have any idea of how much terror represents as a business?. Well, I didn t. After the economic e-bubble ended some years ago, the option at hand to push the economy was terror. . . In this latest, well documented N. Klein s book, beginning in Montreal with the CIA s mind experiments back in the 50 s, you ll be taken by the hand in tour from the University of Chicago campus to Buenos Aires, Santiago, La Paz, Caracas, New Orleans, New York, Beirut, Tel Aviv, etc. and to practically every place on Earth, that ...