Daily Archives: 10/12/2008

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Outliers: The Story of Success: Malcolm Gladwell

Finished the new Malcolm Gladwell book yesterday.

Outliers: The Story of Success: Malcolm Gladwell: Amazon.fr

The story of 10,000 hours practice and the luck required to suceed has been well trailed. Gladwell has talked about the subject multiple times.

However, it’s still worth the read; because of the other subjects. He makes a very real case for serious reform of schools, and for raising children in a very different way. I wonder if that will have an effect on governments; I fear not!

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Notes: Eric Besson

  • Overall he was impressive; he seemed to actually understand the subject and it was far more than just slogans.
  • There are real projects underway. It was interesting that the initiatives that he talked about were all infrastructure based. The government has obviously decided that its role is infrastructure and its sticking to it.
  • The digital blueprint for France was used as a model for the rest of Europe!!! Look what the GSM standard did for mobile in Europe.
  • The crisis is a chance to revolutionize education (and again he talked about infrastructure).
Note: Not sure how many people in the room actually understood that a French minister is not allowed to express himself in English because of the risk of translation error/issues.
Note: They need professional translators next time!!!
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General impressions. Day One.

  • First, the speakers are generally more varied than in previous years. Two years, ago it was bloggers talking to bloggers; last year it was always the same people on stage. This year there is a real variety of voices.
  • The venue is too large! This is too big. However, if it was smaller I wouldn’t be able to afford the ticket.
  • There is a real atmosphere this year of slight panic. The startups are VERY worried but then I’m not a startup.
  • Finally, there is probably half the people in the room that have found something to complain about so far. However, I think that we’ll all be back next year.