Gladwell's the Man
Nearly everything that Malcolm Gladwell writes is worth reading. So far hie most important book is The Tipping Point which explores how ideas and culture really work.
For me the big aha is that we only have to find and change the few signs that govern a system to change a major culture. What does this imply? That we can change bureaucracies into more attractive cultures.
What is The Tipping Point about?
It's a book about change. In particular, it's a book that presents a new way of understanding why change so often happens as quickly and as unexpectedly as it does. For example, why did crime drop so dramatically in New York City in the mid-1990's? How does a novel written by an unknown author end up as national bestseller? Why do teens smoke in greater and greater numbers, when every single person in the country knows that cigarettes kill? Why is word-of-mouth so powerful? What makes TV shows like Sesame Street so good at teaching kids how to read? I think the answer to all those questions is the same. It's that ideas and behavior and messages and products sometimes behave just like outbreaks of infectious disease. They are social epidemics. The Tipping Point is an examination of the social epidemics that surround us.
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