I’m a fan of Gladwell’s previous works The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (review posted here) and Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (review posted here) naturally I’m glad to see his new release Outliers: The Story of Success is scheduled to hit bookshelves everywhere this November.
If you enjoyed his previous work, I’m sure you’ll agree it will be worth the wait.
Following the successful read of Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference and learning of discussions underway on the internet regarding his follow up book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking it was clear Blink had to be the next book I picked up the night I finished The Tipping Point. And its another success for Gladwell.
So what is the truth about instantly making a decision in the blink of an eye? We have the ability for rapid cognition…but do we use it in our daily lives? It should tell you a lot about the situation at hand regardless of the outcome:
For instance Gladwell shares these situations: Can you tell the forgery of an ancient piece of art or can you tell the difference between two musicians playing behind a curtain during an audition with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra?
And can you instantly recognize when a professional tennis player will fault on serve even before the ball is struck by the player’s racket? Gladwell shares how rapid cognition can work to your advantage and how we have unfortunately conditioned ourselves to look beyond the ‘gut’ feeling because our eyes can play visual tricks … often for the worse.
I was impressed to learn of police organizations who study facial recognition patterns to develop rapid cognition between a frighten citizen and a hardened criminal … all in the blink of any eye, when life or death can hang in the balance.
A long and exciting summer with Maxwell has taken me away from my daily reading. But I have just finished Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference and learned its just as great as reviews have suggested.
Chapter 3 (The Stickiness Factor: Sesame Street, Blue’s Clues and the Educational Virus) is a really great read and made a real impact in approaching a thread that is currently underway on Internet2‘s Teaching and Learning listserv.
The discussion is about the impact of SecondLife in K12 education. There are real questions about the validity of SecondLife.
After the initial hype of SecondLife (for higher education) peaked, colleges now find themselves in the same rut about really embracing SecondLife when virtual visits never really materialized. A lost leader? Probably.
Many including Wired‘s Chris Anderson are openly debating the ‘stickiness’ of SecondLife. Does it provide solid learning outside the classroom or studio?