Maggie's Farm

Gladwell is an uninteresting commentator who doesn't do enough homework before making his comments. His ideas appeal to pop culture, which is ridiculously superficial and uninterested in real ideas.

We have Tipping Point - so now everyone knows the CONCEPT of the tipping point, but not enough about how to GET TO THE tipping point. The tipping point isn't a place you just arrive at. Yet, as an advertising salesperson, I can't tell you how many people want to 'create a tipping point' with their advertising. Of course you want to created it! But did you do the groundwork first?

Sadly, by focusing on a single point in a long history, we as a culture have come to believe these single points are more interesting than the history itself.

Take the current economic mess we face. Bush's fault? Sure, why not - he's the president and everyone hates him. But if you review the history, we have had a 13 year run up in housing sales and prices! This implies that the bubble preceded Bush! So he caused it?
Hedge Funds? Same story.
Securitized credit? Same story.

It doesn't matter that these things have a history. All that matters is the single point we choose to look at as "THE POINT" where we started paying attention.