The Gladwell Effect
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/books/review/05donadio.html
I met Malcome Gladwell as his audience in 2003 when I first attended the ASTD international conference where he delivered a keynote speech on Tipping Point. I knew that he did some inspirational works, and I was just impressed by the title of his relatively recent book, Outliers without even reading the content.
As soon as I got a Kindle (BTW, this is my third day since I have been playing with it), I purchased some books from Amazon including Outliers. His tone of writing well reflects his occupation, journalist--I didin't even know his background, so I searched the web. As I search, I found the link above.
The ariticle nicely reviews about him and his works. However, to me, the best takeaway was his mentioning about researchers (http://www.nytimes.com/audiosrc/books/gladwell-function.mp3). One day, I wrote about becoming a qualitative researcher (I cannot find it!). My main point was that researchers should also act like journalists. When I took a qualitative research course, I heard about a criticizm on qualitative research. However, it is not a matter of choice, we can choose both.
I envision to write a book based on my research, which is also geared towards the public. So far the best role model for this idea is "Stephen Covey." However, his book is rather too theoretical and educational. Gladwell's book is based on real stories (non-fiction), but it gives powerful message. Perhaps, I will be at somewhere inbetween.

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