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July 04, 2006
People. Gladwell on Authenticity
People. Gladwell on Authenticity: Malcolm Gladwell is Dork's Oprah Winfrey. Some feel that Gladwell's a bit too didactic, but we love him. His writing style reminds me a lot of a favorite professor of mine from law school, Frank Wu (If you haven't read Wu's Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White, we recommend it highly). They both have an uncanny way of breaking complicated things down and making you wonder why you didn't think of it first. I'd love to witness the two converse.
A few weeks back Gladwell made an appearance on Charlie Rose. He was interviewed by film producer Brian Grazer. They had an interesting back-and-forth about authenticity in marketing. Gladwell characterized it as an "arms race between liars and listeners." With the wealth of information available because of the Internet, listeners have a higher sensitivity to bullsh*t. As the listener gets more skeptical, it's the liars' job to put more effort into making them believe some marginal truth. Due to this, authenticity, in Gladwell's opinion, is more valued than ever. The winners are the people that can communicate their authenticity effectively. Note: The show begins with Salman Rushdie interviewing Deepa Mehta. Their conversation was interesting, but if you just want to dive into the Gladwell portion, fast forward halfway.*
Watch Malcolm Gladwell and Brian Grazer's conversation [Here]
Posted by james at July 4, 2006 07:30 PM