In a recent piece in The New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell combines the tales of a high school basketball team, King David and Lawrence of Arabia to explore how and why underdogs beat favourites:
“And it happened as the Philistine arose and was drawing near David that David hastened and ran out from the lines toward the Philistine,” the Bible says. “And he reached his hand into the pouch and took from there a stone and slung it and struck the Philistine in his forehead.” The second sentence—the slingshot part—is what made David famous. But the first sentence matters just as much. David broke the rhythm of the encounter. He speeded it up. “The sudden astonishment when David sprints forward must have frozen Goliath, making him a better target,” the poet and critic Robert Pinsky writes in “The Life of David.” Pinsky calls David a “point guard ready to flick the basketball here or there.” David pressed. That’s what Davids do when they want to beat Goliaths.
Now, those of you who are familiar with my writing will know that this practice of talking about X by discussing Y is my only rhetorical move.
There’s also a wonderful piece by Adam Gopnik (probably my favourite magazine writer) about razors and innovation in that issue. Unfortunately, it’s not online, but it’s in the May 11th issue, should you get your hands on a copy.
I recently started listening to Malcolm Gladwell’s new book, Outliers: The Story of Success. I’ve enjoyed his other books, and a New Yorker Conference video on the same subject as this book, so I downloaded this one from Audible.
I’m not very far in, but I’m quite enjoying it. I do have one little complaint about a shocking mistake that Mr. Gladwell makes. He opens the book, to my bemusement, with a story about the Vancouver Giants and their recent Memorial Cup victory. Have a listen and see if you can spot the problem. That’s the author narrating:
“Third quarter”? “Third quarter”? Seriously, Malcolm. Surely you attended at least one or two hockey games while growing up in Elmira, Ontario. And maybe a young Malcolm glanced up from his McLuhan studies to avoid a wayward puck and note that a hockey game has three periods. Truth be told, he does correctly reference the “second period” in the previous sentence, so I expect it was just an oversight. Or an over-zealous sub-editor. But it set off my born-in-Canada alarm.
This got me wondering about the production process of the audio book. When do they record it? What is Mr. Gladwell reading from when he narrates the audio book? And when did they identify and correct this tiny yet egregious error?
Lately, I’ve been so busy that I’ve had less time to devise fully-formed blog posts in my head. As such, I’m going to occasionally lean on the link round-up crutch. Also, I get pitched much more stuff these days, and some of it seems noteworthy. I might have more to say about these topics, but I don’t have time to say it.
Standardized testing fail - This Wall Street Journal article received a lot of attention on the web last week. I’m unsure about the validity of its arguments, but fresh perspectives on education are always welcome. It reminded of of this great half-hour talk by Malcolm Gladwell, which apparently draws from his forthcoming book. He would, I gather, strongly disagree with the WSJ piece.
TravelMob launch - TravelMob just launched, which seems to be a group travel planning site–a bit like TripHub. Julie used the latter for a holiday last year, and sung its praises. I suspect there’s a market for planning aids of this sort. A web design note: they should host their blog on their own domain, to enjoy increased SEO benefits.
Kickin’ it EE style - Friends Hop Studios and Boxcar Marketing are sponsoring the Expression Engine Roadshow, in Vancouver on September 26. It’s at Havana, where the old theatre company Julie and I managed used to perform. I know almost nothing about Expression Engine, except that it seems to inspire Applesque ardor among its users.
Allergies and Tide - Jason writes to point to this message thread on Tide’s marketing micro-site MyTalkingStain.com (launched with this slightly-amusing Super Bowl ad). I can’t access it at the moment, but he notes that “P&G has (seemingly) ignored but a decent number of people are coming across it when trying to determine why they’re breaking out in rashes from new detergent”. Assuming the site hasn’t been permanently removed, I’ll be curious to see how (and if) Tide responds to these consumer concerns.
. I’ve enjoyed his other books, and a New Yorker Conference video on the same subject as this book, so I downloaded this one from Audible.