Comments on John Graham-Cumming: How to write a "Malcolm Gladwell Bestseller" (an M...

I am writing a critical analysis on Gladwell's...

2011-05-22T02:11:40.238Z

I am writing a critical analysis on Gladwell's "Small Change" and in the process I somehow ended up here. Glad I did.

I can't remember the last time I read anything that made me laugh all by myself.
Thank you. Ur observations are right on point.

Its really difficult to comment on this post. You ...

2011-01-27T07:06:33.336Z

Its really difficult to comment on this post. You know why? Cause i could not express in words. And i really like this post. Thanks for sharing.

all of this YET he is on the list as #2 of the gre...

2010-09-23T16:06:26.579Z

all of this YET he is on the list as #2 of the greatest 50 thinkers......and your name is where?

I think you've captured the essential ingredie...

2010-07-16T09:06:11.285Z

I think you've captured the essential ingredients. I expressed similar sentiments in a piece called, "Malcolm Gladwell polishes a turd." http://whenfallsthecoliseum.com/2010/07/13/malcolm-gladwell-polishes-a-turd/

I dig the premises of the other books this author&...

2010-06-12T18:18:06.678Z

I dig the premises of the other books this author's put out. And, he has a knack for writing for the masses, which is probably why he's on the NYT Bestsellers list so often (what with mechanics like "Or are they?"--dun, dun, dun!). You would've certainly have heard of this guy if you listen to NPR at a

Gladwell's not perfect, but I think you're...

2010-06-12T16:42:11.908Z

Gladwell's not perfect, but I think you're a bit too hard on him. There's nothing inherently wrong with points 1, 2, 3, and 5. It's just a question of what kind of book you want to write, and he's sold enough books to prove that this style works for him.

Accuracy and novelty (7 and 8) are somewhat mutually exclusive. If you write about the new new thing, the chances are high that later research will contradict you. It's a constant balancing act and hard to get perfect. Even as a science blogger who works in the field, I constantly worry that something I write about has been or is in the process of being disproven.

Also, it's very rare that any scientific claim is completely supported by all other research. It's the nature of the process -- once a paper goes out, other people come along and try to prove you wrong. Debates go on for decades and the answer is almost never black or white (Although perhaps Gladwell is at fault for portraying it as such). Do you have references to the papers that contradict Milgrim's results? I'd be interested in reading them.

Amen!

2010-06-12T16:37:23.715Z

Amen!

Thank God someone is speaking up and calling bulls...

2010-06-11T15:44:59.886Z

Thank God someone is speaking up and calling bullshit on the absurdity of the Gladwell books. I anxiously await someone - anyone! - to slay the biggest dragon of them all: Seth Godin. I actually enjoy Gladwell's New Yorker essays, and the occasional Godin blog post. But the overbearingly repetitive, worthless nonsense that metastasizes around their writings in long form is soul-crushing-ly empty. I cannot for the life of me understand the cult following that each has attained. Godin is considered a business and marketing guru, and yet he basically writes self-help books wrapped around cute anecdotes that promulgate the obvious ("To survive in this economic climate, you have to be an indispensable linchpin! Really!"). As for Gladwell, you (and @Joel) have summed it up perfectly. As for the legions of devotees of each, I think the best-seller/viral spread of their works ("You MUST read the new Gladwell/Godin!") creates a peculiar, vicious cycle: it's always "sour grapes" (rather than critical thinking) to the masses of followers like @CAgirl who have plunked down copious amounts of money to have every book these guys have written and to attend speaking engagements whenever possible. They have to cry "sour grapes" to justify their investment.

Thank God someone is speaking up and calling bulls...

2010-06-11T15:41:34.722Z

Another thing you missed is that you need to add q...

2010-06-11T02:14:51.845Z

Another thing you missed is that you need to add quite a bit of unnecessary detail any time you mention a person.

Interviewing a Professor is fine, but to be a Gladwell you have to say:

As one of the earliest researchers of the Blinking Point phenomenon, Professor Arnold Frink has studied hundreds of cases.

Professor Frink is six foot one and weighs 245 pounds. He has unruly brown hair, not dark brown but the color of half-roasted hazelnuts. He has a habit of drawing his slender fingers through his hair as he thinks about a problem. He has few friends, but knows just about everyone on the campus. He once placed second in the fifty-yard dash in the Princeton Junior Athletics division, and his preferred drink is the Dry Martini. Frink is taciturn and even shy at times, but gets almost unbearably loud if you argue a point with him.

When asked about my theory, he said, "Yes, that's true."

It's not just that he builds his writing aroun...

2010-06-10T23:50:12.754Z

It's not just that he builds his writing around theories that have been disproven, but that were never taken seriously by experts in the field -- Ekman's work on lie detection being a particularly glaring example. For more, see http://bit.ly/9Zw12w

You've got to be kidding! MG's boo...

2010-06-10T23:19:19.282Z

You've got to be kidding! MG's books don't leave me flat and I've learned interesting tidbits, which make me notice things differently.

Faulting him for using capital letters in "Law of the Few" is the only way to distinguish this concept from "law of the few." Don't you people read? This is Grammar 101.

This is pure sour grapes. If it's really this simple, go ahead and write a bestseller yourself!

You did miss one thing: The idea must also be supe...

2010-06-10T20:24:35.318Z

You did miss one thing: The idea must also be superficially contrarian. Eg, instinct is superior to analysis, hard work is more important to genius than talent, the whole world is connected together by relatively few people, perfection is different things to different people.

"Unfortunately, more recent work suggests tha...

2010-06-10T20:21:02.361Z

"Unfortunately, more recent work suggests that this isn't true."

I don't know if it's quite fair to fault him for describing the scientific consensus of the time, even if that consensus was later proven wrong.

Also, just because work was done a decade ago (as with the airline pilot study) doesn't mean it's wrong or uninteresting.

Whoops. Sorry about the two number 4s.

2010-06-10T19:09:06.878Z

Whoops. Sorry about the two number 4s.

You might have forgotten one requirement - being m...

2010-06-10T18:32:53.625Z

You might have forgotten one requirement - being male. Here is a 2008 post from Tomorrow Museum commenting on, among things, why women don't tend to write those types of books where one sweeping assumption describes the state of civilization: http://tomorrowmuseum.com/2008/10/27/where-are-the-renaissance-women/

Are the two #4s supposed to be a joke?

2010-06-10T18:29:01.625Z

Are the two #4s supposed to be a joke?

You have two Step #4s. :)

2010-06-10T18:26:03.572Z

You have two Step #4s. :)

I wrote something similar a couple of years ago: ...

2010-06-10T17:54:29.570Z

I wrote something similar a couple of years ago:

http://candid.livejournal.com/770034.html

Actually, Step #1 should be to start with a more d...

2010-06-10T17:27:07.819Z

Actually, Step #1 should be to start with a more detailed, drier book, with a solid and concrete idea and then figure out how to rewrite it. For instance, Outliers presents the same ideas, and some of the same stories, as Talent is Overrated (by Geoffry Colvin). It's also worth noting that Talent Code followed both of these books and presents some additional research.

Gladwell isn't the first to use this model, obviously, but he's pretty good at it.

I too have read all of Gladwell's essay/articl...

2010-06-10T16:00:27.380Z

I too have read all of Gladwell's essay/articles in The New Yorker and each of his books of those same essays threaded together and I have to say, your note that the books leave you flat at the end is right on for me.

I prefer Gladwell in essay form and given that I read The New Yorker, I think I'm going to skip the books in the future. My personal fav is 6 Degrees of Lois Weisberg which was in The Tipping Point:

http://www.gladwell.com/1999/1999_01_11_a_weisberg.htm

In it he covers all the major ideas expanded in the book and it's a much faster read.

Thanks for your post, and good luck with the bestseller.