In This Case, Part of the Late Majority

Nine years ago, nine years! How did it take that long for me to finally read The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell? Me who in many instances consider myself to be quite the maven, innovator and change agent. So being almost a decade old, the theories in the book can seem dated already, especially as it predates web social networking. I felt like I was back in graduate school studying marketing theories because Gladwell is writing something to advise his readers how to spot and manipulate change since they themselves are not trendsetters or thought leaders. With that aura around it, I found it to be as boring as my marketing courses. On the other hand, it is not practical enough to say specifically how to reach the critical mass for broadly launching a new idea/product, a skill set I sorely needed when trying to get shared workspace up on the computers at work six or so years ago.

I am not turned off enough not to read Outliers and Blink. Which brings up a new tack I want to include in the blog. When I was strictly adhering to the annual reading list, it was easy to follow my path; now since that has fallen by the wayside, I need to keep better track of how one book leads into another, documenting both my curiosity and happenstance associations. I started an effort to do that when I listed the books published by Hesperus that were in the back of A Rogue's Life. And now my admission that I will try a couple more Gladwell books. Since he mentions six degrees of separation, this will be my attempt to associate my reading matter into whatever off the wall linkages I create.