Gladwell Video

[michelej1]

http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/vide...-2008-gladwell

[I haven't watched this video yet but I've read about it. Malcolm Gladwell talks at a design conference and he discusses FM and David Galenson's ideas about creativity. I will give it a go when I have 40 spare minutes.]

About this video

Only Malcolm Gladwell could bring Fleetwood Mac into the design discussion and make wonderful sense. In his enlightening talk about innovation and misconceptions about what it takes to become a success, Gladwell uses this unlikely metaphor for creative synthesis in an entertaining entrée into the concepts of his forthcoming book, Outliers. Genius and creativity don’t necessarily spring forth unbidden, he says; they require time and support to experiment, to try and even fail. During this time of economic crisis and eventual renewal, he hopes that the design community will be able to “rediscover the true roots of creativity and innovation.”


Speaker bio

Malcolm Gladwell has been a staff writer with The New Yorker magazine since 1996. His 1999 profile of Ron Popeil won a National Magazine Award, and in 2005 he was named one of Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People.” He is the author of two books, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Big Difference, (2000) and Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (2005), both of which were number one New York Times bestsellers. From 1987 to 1996, Gladwell was a reporter with the Washington Post, where he covered business and science, and then served as the newspaper’s New York City bureau chief. He graduated from the University of Toronto, Trinity College, with a degree in history. He was born in England, grew up in rural Ontario, and now lives in New York City.

[MacMan]

Watched an interview with him on Charlie Rose recently... He's writes about an interesting theory in his book about it taking 10,000 hours of practice to become great at what ever you do...

[michelej1]

Originally Posted by MacMan

Watched an interview with him on Charlie Rose recently... He's writes about an interesting theory in his book about it taking 10,000 hours of practice to become great at what ever you do...

Oh, I saw him on CNN talking to Anderson Cooper about that. He thinks 10,000 hours translates to about 10 years. So, if you're in a profession, he thinks it probably takes 10 years to perfect your skill and talent in it. So, I wonder how he brings FM into it. Ten years until 1977?? I'll listen to the clip eventually.

Michele

[macpai]

A friend of this who knows I'm into the Mac just forwarded this to me.

[TrueFaith77]

My roommate works at aiga and helps put that event together. She told me about it and sent me the link awhile back and I put it up on my blog. I still haven't watched it. But another friend of mine who was the event (why wasn't I invited?) told me he was excited when the guy mentioned the Mac but that the analysis wasn't ... helpful.

[michelej1]

From The Independent (UK), February 7. 2009 by Alison Wenham

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-en...y-1604927.html

This week I also saw Malcolm Gladwell (author of The Tipping Point) speaking about his new book, Outliers. In it, he expands on the neuro-scientific theory that it takes 10,000 hours to develop a skill to world-class excellence. Using Fleetwood Mac as an example, he points out that Rumours was their 16th album, not their first or second. Years and years of practice, trial and error made Rumours; not the overnight success that today's major artists are under pressure to become.

They say you make your own luck, but the real art is to be ready when it comes along. Among the made-for-TV celebrities, there are young Charles Aznavours and Fleetwood Macs practising to make perfect.

Alison Wenham is

[David]

Originally Posted by michelej1

This week I also saw Malcolm Gladwell (author of The Tipping Point) speaking about his new book, Outliers. In it, he expands on the neuro-scientific theory that it takes 10,000 hours to develop a skill to world-class excellence. Using Fleetwood Mac as an example, he points out that Rumours was their 16th album, not their first or second. Years and years of practice, trial and error made Rumours; not the overnight success that today's major artists are under pressure to become.

Describes Debussy, too. And -- mutatis mutandis -- certainly Beethoven, whose sketchbooks show signs of work so concentrated & rigorous that blood stains darken some of those pages.

But then we get a Kleist or an Orson Welles, whose first two movies, both made when he was in his 20s, are masterpieces.

I can see some accuracy in this neuroscience, but I hesitate to consider it (scientific) law.

[michelej1]

Originally Posted by David

I can see some accuracy in this neuroscience, but I hesitate to consider it (scientific) law.

And surely an evolving group with changing members must be studied on different terms than an individual.

Michele

[michelej1]

Los Angeles Times excerpt:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/musi...tive_hysteria/


There’s a fascinating clip floating around the Internet of Malcolm Gladwell discussing Fleetwood Mac. He uses the band to illustrate “the 10,000 hour rule,” which he posits is the amount of dedicated work it takes to become truly great at something. Taken from his most recent book, "Outliers," Gladwell offers up the story of Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 album "Rumours." He argues that it took the band 10 years, 10 studio albums and a rotating cast of members to ultimately culminate in one of the most popular records of all time.

[michelej1]

[this is a fuller discussion of what Gladwell says about FM, cited by someone in the grocery business as advice for long range success]

By Michelle Moran, Progressive Grocer, May 13, 2009

http://www.progressivegrocer.com/pro...3bc2ac76d14a7e
Malcolm Gladwell stepped onto the stage and began talking about Fleetwood Mac.

Fleetwood Mac is often referred to as a band that became an overnight success. Instead theirs is a story of a band that went from failure to success. It’s their effort that brought them success, not mere chance. Rumors was their 15th album.

“I had assumed this was an overnight success. But it took 10 years for them to get to the top,” Gladwell said, adding that to achieve mastery, you have this long period of gestation -- the 10,000-hour rule.

“It is impossible to master any cognitively complex activity without spending 10,000 hours of practice on that activity,” he explained.

That’s 10 years of practice.

“I wonder, while we were in the last 10 years of this bubble where things seemed to be happening magically, whether we have fallen into the trap that effort isn’t in the center of mastery,” Gladwell questioned. “When you ask American kids what it takes to be good at math, they’ll tell you it is something you are born with, it’s innate, not learned….Is this a problem confined to mathematics? I don’t think so.”

Gladwell illustrated his point with American Idol, which fosters the idea of the overnight sensation, supposedly enabling contestants to become stars in the next 10 minutes.

“It is so profoundly false and so profoundly toxic. And I cannot help but thing that this is a behavior that is seeping into our business culture,” he exclaimed.

There are two very different learning strategies. The first is Capitalization, where you build on your strengths and grow toward success. The second is the Compensation strategy, where you compensate for your weaknesses.

“You are given a series of disadvantages and overcome them to build on your value,” Gladwell explained. “This is the more valuable strategy. You see a very different quality coming from people or businesses that follow the compensation strategy.”

People who are willing to work harder to overcome their limitations succeed. In illustrating his point, Gladwell noted that one-third of the most successful entrepreneurs have been diagnosed with a learning disability. They have acquired, while overcoming their disability, a set of skills critical to the business world -- leadership, problem solving, oral communication and delegation.

“The Compensation strategy is a better route to greatness than the Capitalization strategy….We are at a moment when compensatory strategies are all we are left with. They are not obstacles to creativity, they are highways to creativity,” Gladwell concluded. “I worry we have lost sight of the notion that the root to achieving something of value requires failure along the way. There is no way that Fleetwood Mac could have made it today. We would never wait 15 albums for success. We would not even wait one album to see promise. And I cannot help but wonder….Is that kind of attitude costing us all sorts of genius and innovation?”

As this industry faces a new set of challenges -- of disadvantages -- those ready to harness their energy and their teams, and work harder to meet the demands of consumers and the new social structure of the shopping environment are on track for success.