I also just finished reading Tipping Point and had seen Blink on a lot of reading lists, and gotten a recommendation as well. As other people have noted the premise and discussion of the value, process and limitations of instinctual decisions making were excellent. I did feel that the last 1/4 of the book kind of dropped off. I was hoping Gladwell would tie together the idea of training your instincts & intuition, rather than giving a few spot examples.

Heard an interview with Malcolm Gladwell, the author of BLINK, on NPR early in 2005. It was just after I had to make a critical spot decision in seconds… then wondered for hours whether it had been the right thing to do. As it turned out weeks later, it was the correct decision to make, and in those weeks I had taken the opportunity to read this book, an impromptu personal gift from someone very close.

Had I read the book before, I would have felt more confident in my ability to make an intuitive snap decision that was right.

We all have to make quick decisions in our daily lives, some mundane and some critical. We make quick decision as simple as to what we will eat for lunch. We may also have to make fast critical decisions, such as how to avoid an impending car accident: do we brake, swerve or accelerate. And it’s just this “rapid cognition” that Gladwell writes about so well that can make the difference.

One could easily assume that BLINK is about dealing with intuition, as a colleague of mine thought when I described the book. That’s not what it’s about, because intuition is more of a concept used to describe our “gut feelings,” our emotional reactions that aren’t always very rational. BLINK deals with those rational first two second that are our rapid cognition.

Gladwell points out that contrary to the way were raised from childhood, there are times of stress and high pressure when fast judgment calls and first impressions are a better choice than slow, deliberate thinking for making sense of the world around us.

His examples are superb: code breaking during World War II, speed dating, marriage, medical malpractice (insightful – do read it twice). He even covers things as unusual as what you can discover about a person by being aware of what you see when looking around their bedroom, and interesting views about the best car dealer in New Jersey. You’ll just have to read the book to understand where rapid cognition fits in.

There is an entire chapter dealing with the power of “thin slicing” that deals with what some psychologists have recognized is our ability to make good judgement calls based on the “thinnest slice of experience.” The author delves into this subject quite well, and the examples that he offers are amazing.

But can rapid cognition go wrong? It it always the right way to approach things? Just read about what Gladwell calls the “Warren Harding Error” for the answer. He makes a compelling case for the fact that we can and will make “Warren Harding Errors” in so many types of circumstances, especially when it comes to hiring personnel. His suggestions here will help one recognize the differences between good rapid cognition and bad rapid cognition. Split-second decisions can often be either more accurate than many months of project management or scientific planning, or they can become tragic disasters. In this book the author shows that you can educate and exercise your rapid cognition to avoid hazardous traps.

We all recognize the importance of what happens in dating relationships at that instance when two people first meet. But it seems difficult to face the significance of what happens in the critical first seconds when we interview someone for a job, someone offers a new idea, or when a police officer has to make a critical quick decision at the moment a crime is being committed. Gladwell makes a compelling case to make us take rapid cognition as a part of our critical thinking process.

BLINK deals with those small situations we all face in our daily lives, with assumptions that show up when we meet new people, make important personal and business decisions under stress, or when we are forced to meet complex situations head-on.

This is one of those books that comes along and changes the way that you see the world around us. It’s a fairly fast read, neither too light nor too heavy, and if you’re anything like this reader, you’ll want to read it a second time just to get a bit more out of it.

Had reviewed this book on Amazon.com last fall, and have since given it as a gift.

I was looking forward to reading this book and was very disappointed. It seems to be written in a patronising, repetitive, dumbed-down way for people with short attention spans. Though it did discuss some interesting points these were lost in the drivel in between that the author used to pad the book out. Not recommended – there are better psychology books out there.

“Well written and easy to read.” would summarize the book.

This book concisely references a number of studies showing the accuracy of instant judgements. Ever thought that you were awful for dismissing people with a glance? Well, this book shows that you may be right after all.

That is a relief :-)

I’m not going to go into great detail here, but this book does not match the hype. To be honest, it would be much better without any of it.

It’s a book about how people are able to make snap decisions. It’s just not groundbreaking news to me.

Boring. I didn’t expect it to be so scientific. I’m not opposed to science, but I feel this would have been more interesting had it just been examples of quick decisions as seen from the author’s viewpoint, rather than a lot of university studies and such. There was too much of that to sort through to get to the few nuggets of example that were buried beneath it all.

I was expecting more simple observation, rather than all this studied implication.

This is exactly what I want to “grow up” to study!

I enjoyed Tipping Point more, but there were some fascinating anecdotes in this book as well. Gladwell loves to tell stories!

Interesting read. I am looking forward to seeing him present a keynote.

I’ve been hearing good things about this book for a while and almost bought it a while back.

Picked it up in the airport on a trip back from Boston last week. Just getting into it. Like it so far.

I love Gladwell in The New Yorker doing his short-form thing. Blink seems to suffer from a lack of long-form depth. He repeats and repeats and repeats his case.

Now back in the first sentence, we learned that I really like Gladwell when he does his…. ;-)

Anyway, now that the “tipping point” meme has reached epidemic preportions, I wonder if “thin-slicing” will be the new hot buzzword among marketers, business managers, and the chattering classes? Will it penetrate the vernacular to the degree “tip” has? Example:

“I got the impression that Bob had already thin-sliced Alice and wasn’t going to change his opinion one way or the other.”

It could happen.