Jonathan Arnold reviewed Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Review of 'Outliers' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Here's what I wrote earlier. I have to admit to the more I think and talk about the book, the less I think of it. It all seems too superficial.
A pretty interesting book, albeit with not quite as many "knock me over with a feather" moments as [b:Blink|40102|Blink|Malcolm Gladwell|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255630010s/40102.jpg|1180927]. It starts off with a bang, as he discusses amateur hockey teams and how it was noticed that virtually all the players on an Under-18 hockey team came from the first three months of the year. Turns out the age cutoff is January 1 in Canada, so the older players (those born early in the year) advanced further due to their slight maturity advantage which continued to multiply, as they got better training, put on better teams etc.
This subject hits close to home, as I am a soccer coach and heavily involved in my daughter's soccer league. My oldest …
Here's what I wrote earlier. I have to admit to the more I think and talk about the book, the less I think of it. It all seems too superficial.
A pretty interesting book, albeit with not quite as many "knock me over with a feather" moments as [b:Blink|40102|Blink|Malcolm Gladwell|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255630010s/40102.jpg|1180927]. It starts off with a bang, as he discusses amateur hockey teams and how it was noticed that virtually all the players on an Under-18 hockey team came from the first three months of the year. Turns out the age cutoff is January 1 in Canada, so the older players (those born early in the year) advanced further due to their slight maturity advantage which continued to multiply, as they got better training, put on better teams etc.
This subject hits close to home, as I am a soccer coach and heavily involved in my daughter's soccer league. My oldest has a birthday at the worst possible time, just a few weeks before the cutoff date, while the younger one has a birthday the month after the cutoff date. So far, it hasn't seemed to slow the older one's progress, but it is something I will certainly keep an eye on. Gladwell's suggestion is to have multiple cutoff dates, so other ages can play against others of the same age. Doesn't seem likely though.
He also explores how the timing of your interests can really change things. Something as simple as how available computer time was to early pioneers like Bill Gates and Bill Joy. Certainly, in the late 60s and early 70s, the amount of keyboard time these guys had pales in comparison to what would be available just a few years before that. He also talks about a major law firm in New York that benefited from getting the kinds of financial cases the other law firms wouldn't deal with, only to explode in popularity as the money days of the 80s and 90s struck.
I thought the book felt like it suffered from data mining, in that there didn't seem to be enough exploration of other equally successful groups that may not have had the same advantages. But still a fascinating look at what kinds of thing influence success, whether we think about them or not.
