Gladwell and Krulwich -- 92nd Street Y

Krulwich is the perfect person to interview Gladwell. He has been a science and economics reporter for various television and radio networks and is currently a contributor to Radio Lab, a very good NPR show available as a podcast for free.

The show below is over an hour and a half, so it might not be for everyone. It takes about 4 minutes to get going.

A column by Brooks on Gladwell

Lost in the Crowd

Nothing could get me this excited -- except for watching the Nixon/Frost interviews that my sister got me (the real interviews).

Give the people what they want

No, not the The Kinks

Tom Friedman wrote this today:

Over the years, Detroit bosses kept repeating: “We have to make the cars people want.” That’s why they’re in trouble. Their job is to make the cars people don’t know they want but will buy like crazy when they see them. I would have been happy with my Sony Walkman had Apple not invented the iPod. Now I can’t live without my iPod. I didn’t know I wanted it, but Apple did. Same with my Toyota hybrid.

This theme is talked about in this Malcolm Gladwell talk about the invention of chunky tomato sauce. The key is that nobody would have told you that they wanted chunky tomato sauce, but they did. This is more interesting than Friedman's ipod analogy -- because technological innovation is always happening, and is expected.

Gladwell -- Outliers

Michiko Kakutani wrote a negative review of Malcolm Gladwell's new book Outliers. Kakutani feels that it is little more then a collection of common sense aphorisms. "Much of what Mr. Gladwell has to say about superstars is little more than common sense: that talent alone is not enough to ensure success, that opportunity, hard work, timing and luck play important roles as well."

She criticizes him for what I think is his greatest gift. That is, writing clearly about the solving of complex problems. Writing clearly does not mean that the ideas are in themselves simple, or "common sense." In fact, many of the conclusions Gladwell comes to are counter-intuitive, and require that you get beyond your first impulse.

Near the end of the book Gladwell writes about the findings of Johns Hopkins sociologist Karl Alexander. Here is a link to Alexander's article Lasting Consequences of the Summer Learning Gap. What Alexander finds in his study is that the main problem with the education of low-income students is what happens in the time that they are not in school, most specifically summer vacation. It is not necessarily news that children in these circumstances encounter problems in their home life. What is telling, however, is that Alexander (and by proxy Gladwell) finds that summer vacation is when the gap between low and high to middle-class students solidifies. Low-income students progress even further in a school year then their higher income counterparts.

We can reform education (and to some extent, need to) by changing the curriculum, spending more money on schools, and by hiring better teachers, but none of this will address the main cause of the problem. I use this as an example because it involves facts that we all, for the most part, already know. The conclusion of the report is not complex, yet it is not the conclusion I would have reached using my common sense.

Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell is coming out with a new book, Outliers: the story of success.

I recently heard a talk of his about America's obsession with precociousness, not knowing that it was connected to a book. Now it makes sense that he would spend an hour and half talking about the subject. The talk -- as all of his are -- is enlightening. It breaks down myths that many of us have believed about prodigies like Mozart. If we think that he was writing beautiful music at five years old, we think that there is a way to teach others to do the same. Realizing that the original premise may be flawed, hopefully can alleviate some of the pressure that is applied on early success.