Gladwell on TED

Malcolm Gladwell: What we can learn from spaghetti sauce
The author of Blink and the Tipping Point speaks of a psychophisicist named Howard. What is the right amount of sweetness for Diet Pepsi? This was a question posed to Howard by Pepsi. The data was random.

After years of speculation, Howard realized that there was no single 'Sweet Spot' for a whole population. There were many sweet spots. Then when Cambell's came to him for a suggestion to beat Raghu spaghetti sauce, he created 45 varieties of Tomato sauce based on many factors.

After an experimental tour of the country to test out his 45 sauces, he now had data for the best spaghetti sauces. He did not look for a single silver bullet. He grouped them into three clusters: Plain, spicy and extra chunky.

The last is what he went with and Prego(Cambell) created a chunky sauce and created $600M worth of spagetti sauces. This resulted in many varieties of spagetti sauce on the market.

This an enormously important development in the food market. It meant that the method of asking customers what they wanted was wrong. No one knew that they wanted chunky spaghetti sauce. 'The mind does not know what the tongue wants.'

Howard also made us realize that the importance of 'Horizontal Segmentation'. There were two mustards in the market not long ago selling at $8. Grey Poupon came along and sold it at $4 and reaped big profits. Howard said that this was not the way to go. There was no single great mustard.

Howard also proved that there was no single best way to make a dish. (Also called the platonic way to make dishes.) Italian Tomato sauce was thin with no visible solids. Howard proved that giving everyone the culturally authentic sauce was the best way to please others was not necessarily the best strategy.

Science too now looks for understanding variability than searching for universals. Howard said that the search for universals was a disservice to ourselves. When we embrace the diversity of human beings, we find happiness.

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Book Review:Blink

Do not crowd the issue with facts. Nine out of ten statistics are wrong.(Including this one.) We could go on and on. Can we make the best judgement calls when we have too much information? Not according to Malcolm Gladwell, the author of blink.

In 'Tipping Point' Gladwell presented a theory where a small spark creates a massive fire in several unrelated fields. This time, in Blink, he take on, in my opinion a more ambitious undertaking. He tries to explain how in many circumstances a snap decision can be far better than one made with massive quantities of data and too much research.

As with his previous work, he cites numerous examples to illustrate his point.Here are a few:

A couple of experts in a museum had a 'hunch' that a statue acquired by the museum was a fake despite the fact that many others had scrutinized it in great detail, even under the eye of an electron microscope.A hospital official at the Cook's County hospital came up with an algorithm on handling a deluge of patients who were at a risk of a heart attack. The algorithm picked out the patients at a greater risk at a much better rate than the doctors who had years of experience in treating such patients.Gladwell analyzes in great detail how experienced policemen make a better judgement call about the imminent danger they face when they confront someone on the street. The younger ones on the force are impulsive and make snap judgements based on inherent biases that often lead to disatrous consequences.The famous Cola wars are another example of market research gone awry. In a taste test, most people preferred Pepsi to Coke. The Coke company created another Cola that was closer in taste to Pepsi. It was a disaster causing coke to loose millions of dollars. It turned out that while Pepsi won the taste test, Coke won out when one had to choose to drink a whole can.
At MIT, we would call Gladwell a great Systems thinker as he has the ability to explain his views on several types of 'Systems'. His theory that we must apply the detail analysis approach to smaller problems and the blink methodology to more complex problems sounds a bit suspect to me. Having said that, I think this is a book that must be required reading for the SDM program that I completed at MIT, simply because it gives another perspective on decision making. Gladwell's writing is always interesting, rich with examples and keeping the reader waiting for the theory to unfold.

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Book Review: The Tipping Point

‘Riveting’ is not a word usually used by a reviewer to describe non-fiction. However, it precisely describes how I feel about Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping point. Brilliant anecdotes and food for thought make this book a lucid read. I know this book was out in 2002 but it slipped my radar until very recently.

What causes the tipping point for something to break the thresholds and multiply exponentially, not over a period of time but in one short burst?What do the following things have in common? An unstoppable disease that ravages a population, a TV program that glues millions of kids to the screen or a sudden decline in crime in a large city?

All of these examples, argues the author have some common factors: A few individuals or entities with certain traits, a factor that enables the spread to persist which the author calls the stickiness factor and finally a context for the spread to survive.

Critics of the book argue that this book does not have the ‘how-to’ factor. It does not tell you how to spread or stop the spread of a phenomenon but offers a mental pattern that one may be able to adapt to his situation (or context). This book makes no claim to be a business book and must not be interpreted as one. I have little doubt however, that a smart individual could use the patterns here to promote a product or service.


The Law of the Few


The individuals or entities who spread the word or disease , Gladwell postulates are few in number and fall into three categories. There are the connectors who are in touch with a lot of people but may be close to few. Gladwell insists that the famous six degrees of separation theory is made possible, thanks to some of these well connected people.

He categorizes another group of people as Mavens. These are the dynamic knowledge banks who are ready and willing to spread a phenomenon for no real monetary gain. Finally, to spread the phenomenon on a large scale, one needs efficient salespeople.


The Stickiness Factor


Gladwell explains the stickiness factor in great detail. He uses two children’s TV shows to make his point, Sesame Street and Blues Clues. While Sesame street banked on the short attention span of its young audience to break its show into disconnected segments. Blues Clues used the opposite strategy using a single story line narrated by its host and both were phenomenal successes in their times. I love the way Gladwell disects the motivations behind these shows to make his point.

The Power of Context

Next he explains what he means by the power of context. Wayne Dyer once quoted someone’s great saying that circumstances do not create men, they reveal them. However, Gladwell argues that quite the opposite is true. A person’s reaction to any situation will be determined by his environment and not his intrinsic personality. This means that by simply cleaning up the graffiti on the walls in your neighborhood, you could make it gang free in no time.

The book features numerous case studies and examples to illustrate Gladewell’s framework. This is one of the most informative books I have read in a while.

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