A good collection of stories from Malcolm Gladwell’s New Yorker articles.  You can see the genesis of some of the ideas that would appear a books by Gladwell such as Blink and Outliers.

Being born at the right time has something to do with how successful you will become.   That and the fact that you need at least 10,000 hours of practice to get good at anything.

Split second judgement aren’t always a bad thing.

The Tipping Point has been a significant best seller since its initial publication. Much of this is due to Gladwell’s clear prose and his cogent expression of how change can occur in society – and it would appear that the timing was right on the button: being launched in the late 1990s at a moment when society – through the arrival of internet, mobile phones – began an enormous process of change. It might be fair to say that where our generation regards 1968 as a pivotal year in modern social history – 1997 has produced an even bigger moment of change.

Gladwell’s thesis is that a small idea can spread to become a contagious ‘epidemic’ if it is sticky enough as an idea, and if it is lucky enough to be championed by a good mix of Connectors (people who know a lot of other people), Mavens (people who know a lot about a particular thing or things), and Salesmen.