Malcolm Gladwell LIVE on stage at the WBF

Original post: Sept. 14, 2006

Hello All.  Just got back from the World Business Forum in NYC this week.

Among presenters were Rudy Giuliani, Jack Welch, Bill Clinton and Colin Powell.  But who stole the show?  Journalist and author, Malcolm Gladwell.  (Okay, I'm biased.  I am the only Zaadzster claiming him as a hero...)  [Editor's note:  Just to be fair, ~C4 and a few others do claim him as a teacher.]

I think Malcolm is best in person, on stage.   (I saw him in April too.)   As we know, he presents these great stories, making science and human behavior studies come alive, particularly for business.  So, given MG's studious demeanor you may find his sense of humor and ability to entertain, well, surprising.  Having to present immediately before Bill Clinton and then Colin Powell, he positioned himself as the sucker (my word) best for the job.  (I'd give you more details but I can't possibly do the actual delivery justice.)  He makes the combination of a "just happy to be nominated" humility (real? fake? who cares?) with an also irreverent wit fresh.  (His riffs on buying a laptop at CompUSA and the Ivory Soap 800 number rivals Jon Stewart.)

As Clinton was a bit late, fortunately for Gladwell fans, that allowed for some Q&A.  A woman asked MG about overcoming the glass ceiling.  She offered that she had posed the same question to J. Welch the day before, to which Welch replied that there is no such thing as the glass ceiling if you have a meritocracy <sigh>.  Malcolm dispatched an answer with his stuff about implicit associations and made sense of the glass ceiling, AND what we can do about it in a way that anyone could understand, thus besting Welch, widely known as the CEO of the century -- clearly the last century.
 
Malcolm was the only presenter I saw who spoke from absolutely NO notes. I have never seen a speaker so own the stage.  You get the sense you are listening to a deep, bright, extremely quick thinker, someone who is very comfortable with himself and also a genuine human being.