gavinshearer.com

« "MBAlmer: Fake News For Real MBAs" | Main | Lauren's Got A Stress Fracture »

October 22, 2005

"Blink"

I've blogged before about a podcast of an excellent talk Malcolm Gladwell gave at the SXSW conference earlier this year. Malcolm was speaking about the work and findings behind his recent book, "Blink".

Well, I recently finished "Blink", and it's wonderful. Like Gladwell's earlier "The Tipping Point", "Blink" takes a number of disparate strands of fact, trend, and data, shoves 'em in the blender and hits "frappe." What comes out is a fascinating, accessible, and well-written treatise; it makes a compelling case that we're not as smart as we think we are ... or, at least, the things we think that make us smart (e.g., more data) often cause more problems than they solve.

Gladwell talks about the value (and danger) of snap judgments as they relate to everything from detecting faked art to marriage counseling to police work. And he does a brilliant job of showing that less data is better in certain cases - such as when diagnosing heart attacks in an ER, or when auditioning classical musicians for an orchestra.

It's a must-read, folks - and if you're not down with shelling out for Amazon, the SPL has it.

Posted by Gavin Shearer at October 22, 2005 1:34 PM. Posted to Entertainment.

Comments

Post a comment

« "MBAlmer: Fake News For Real MBAs" | Main | Lauren's Got A Stress Fracture »