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Malcolm Gladwell is on fire!

Woops. We mean, Malcolm Gladwell is quite successful, thank you very much.

Gladwell, The New Yorker's resident big thinker on smallish subjects, finds himself in the odd position of being on the other end of the microscope in the new issue of Fast Company.

"The Accidental Guru" reports that in addition to his duties at The New Yorker, Gladwell is doing the Marshall McLuhan thing, becoming a guru to marketing, advertising, and business people. He's like a therapist or life coach to late capitalism, which is still very much in crisis.

It's the usual profile: some background (he won essay contests in high school), flattering quotes from colleagues (he's his own genre), some color (that aforementioned incident when Gladwell's hair caught on fire), and some interesting revelations (Gladwell's "current going rate": 40k per speaking engagement). And, of course, the sell graph, which reminds you why you're about to commit to reading this article:

But as the expert in social epidemics knows better than anyone, it's not how many people you reach, it's whom you reach. Gladwell and his ideas have reached a tipping point of their own, and evidence of his impact can now be found in all corners of our culture, from politics (Donald Rumsfeld used "tipping point" to describe the war in Iraq) to entertainment (legendary hip-hop group The Roots used it as the title of their latest album).


Ah, that's got to be some sort of honor: Being placed in the culture somewhere between Donald Rumsfeld and The Roots.

Curiously, there's also a lot about the guy's hair ("his halo of bushy brown hair evokes Lenny Kravitz"):

For most of his adult life, he had worn it closely cropped, but several years ago decided to let it grow out into a woolly Afro. "The first thing that started happening was I started getting speeding tickets. . . . I wasn't driving any faster than I was before, I was just getting pulled over way more." Then there was the day Gladwell was walking around New York and cops surrounded him, mistaking him for a rape suspect. "I'm exactly the same person I was before," recalls Gladwell, who's half black (his mother, a therapist, is Jamaican).


Like the subtitle of his book said: Little things can make a big difference.
The Accidental Guru [Fast Company]
Gladwell.com
Gossip Roundup: Malcolm Gladwell Is On Fire, Literally