Written on December 28th, 2004 at 04:12 pm by Darren Rowse
Blink - Malcolm Gladwell
Is anyone else really hanging out to get their hands on a copy of Malcolm Gladwell’s new book Blink?
I’ve had my copy on order for a month or so now and can’t wait til the postman brings it. Malcolm’s last book, The Tipping Point, was really worthwhile and so relevant to blogging. It was one of the books that really got me thinking about Problogging (whilst never mentioning it).
Blink is a book about ‘rapid cognition’ - huh? Well on its ‘about page‘ Malcolm explains:
‘When you meet someone for the first time, or walk into a house you are thinking of buying, or read the first few sentences of a book, your mind takes about two seconds to jump to a series of conclusions. Well, “Blink” is a book about those two seconds, because I think those instant conclusions that we reach are really powerful and really important and, occasionally, really good….
What is going on in inside our heads when we engage in rapid cognition? When are snap judgments good and when are they not? What kinds of things can we do to make our powers of rapid cognition better?’
This sounds like a fascinating book - and as a enternetusers I’m very interested to get my hands on it because I’ve long believed that the first few seconds that a new reader arrives on your blog are incredibly crucial in whether they’ll stay, read on and become loyal readers. In fact my very first blog tips (on my other blog) were related to this topic. I did a little study into how long people stay on blogs and found that the average length of stay on a blog was 96 seconds. 96 seconds isn’t long - but its long enough to make an impression that lasts a lifetime.
Anyway - can’t wait to read ‘Blink‘ - its supposed to be released on 11 January!
2 Responses to “Blink - Malcolm Gladwell”
Jon Gales
December 29th, 2004 8:54 am
I’m reading Tipping Point now and loving it–I was late to the game but I’m reading fast to make up for it. I’ll have to pick this title up on the 11th, sounds greats.
Malcom is on the cover of the latest Fast Company, which is what finally made me start to read his book (I had seen it many times…).
Des Paroz
December 30th, 2004 9:22 am
I read Tipping Point about 2 years ago, and loved it. It was an eyeopener to me, and simply categorised the various types of people important to an idea, product, etc getting over the tipping point.
The concept of Blink is interesting. I will certainly be ordering it.
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