Gladwell now

Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2000). Tipped this, finally.

Malcolm Gladwell's Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2005). How long does it take to decide how good a teacher is? Two seconds! Blink is a book about that two seconds, almost intuitive repulsion. Decisions, Gladwell's argues, made very quickly can be every bit as good as decision made cautiously and deliberately. (emphasis mine) When should we trust that two-second blink? Blink can be "educated and controlled". A subtle sign means million words. One of the many interesting lessons I learned from this book: Don't lose anyone at hello. Put thin-slicing in the correct context. It takes us some time to understand that we actually like something we thought we hated.

Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers: The Story of Success (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2008)."Pepole don't rise from nothing. We do owe something to parentage and patronage...It makes a difference where and when we grew up. The culture we belong to and the legacies passed down by our forebears shape the patterns of our achievement...It is only be asking where they [successful people] are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn't" (p. 19)

"the people at the very top don't work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder." (The 10,000-hour rule, p. 39)

"practical intelligence...'knowing what to say to whom, knowing when to say it, and knowing how to say it for maximum effect." it is about knowing how to do something without necessarily knowing why you know it or being able to explain it....It's knowledge that helps you read situations correctly and get what you want." (The trouble with geniuses, part 2, p. 101)

"Success is not a random act. It arises out of a predictable and powerful set of circumstances and opportunities, and at this point. (The three lessons of Joe Flom, p. 155)

"success arises out of the steady accumulation of advantage: when and where you are born, what your parents did for a living, and what the circumstances of your upbringing were all make a significant difference in how well you do in the world. (p. 175-6)

"success follows a predictable course. It is not the brightest who succeed...Nor is success simply the sum of the decisions and efforts we make on our own behalf. It is, rather, a gift. Outliers are those who have been given opportunities - and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them. (p. 267)

Malcolm Gladwell's What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2009).

"hiring someone is essentially a romantic process, in which the job interview functions as a desexualized version of a date." (p. 391)

"A teacher is not solely responsible for how much is learned in a classroom, and not everything of value that a teacher imparts to his or her students can be captured on a standardized test." (p. 317)

"Old words in the service of a new idea aren't the problem. What inhibits creativity is new words in the service of an old idea." (p. 240)

"The trick to finding ideas is to convince yourself that everyone and everything has a story to tell." (p. xiii)