Gladwell, Community Building, and Principles
Malcolm Gladwell came to Fort McMurray last night and I was definitely excited to hear him speak. I've read three of his books 'Blink', "The Tipping Point' and 'Outliers' and found his lecture last night was more of the same; insightful, engaging, witty, and exuding a sort of gentle intellect. The thrust of Gladwell's speech was to give us McMurrayites some insights into community building based on a number of stories and case studies he had come across. One of the case studies he used was Roseto a small community of 3000 people located in the isolated hills of Pennsylvania. Roseto is remarkable according to Gladwell because in the 50's while other Americans were dying of cardiovascular and other diseases, in Roseto people were dying of old age despite bad diets, smoking and lack of exercise. Gladwell suggests that this is because of the strong sense of community that he painted a beautiful picture of with his prose. I have no reason to doubt hi...