Blink: the power of thinking without thinking
Posted by Matteo | Posted in Books | Posted on 12-05-2008
At the beginning I was doubtful. The title was not promising and it felt almost as “new age”.
Considering though that it came as a gift (the EMEA retail general manager gave it as a gift to everybody in retail to celebrate San Jordi) I decided to read it.
I have to say that “Blink”, Malcolm Gladwell’s last book (he is also the author of “The Tipping Point”) made me change my mind after only few pages.
The apparent “lightness” of the subtitle is in reality supported by a scientific approach and by very pragmatic examples.
Moreover some statements (always supported by scientific experiments and/or researches) are tryly startling.
It does not say, of course, that taking decisions without thinking is better than take them after a careful evaluation. It says that in particular circumstances our brain works in ways that are not rationally clear to us and sometimes it (the brain) tells us to do something that we are unable to explain on a rational level, but very often it’s right.
There’s a chapter that particularly stroke me (”The Kenna’s dilemma”): it talks about the initial judgment that an artist receives first by the insiders and then by the big audience.
It brings to my min a lot of episodes that happened on the Net: from the enthusiasm of the blogosphere for some political candidates to the celebration of some internet startups.
Unexpectedly I’ve found a lot of marketing in this book and I recommend it to everyone is working in marketing and/or advertising.
Clearly in this case my blink was wrong :)
