For some reason, this Twitter post from Third Place Press escaped my attention until today. Raw Story wrote:

Bank of America announced today that they had contracted with author and New Yorker scribe Malcolm Gladwell to headline a series of lectures designed to attract small business owners to the much-criticized bank…Bank of America added that “In each market, Gladwell’s presentation was preceded by a panel discussion on relationship capital, a core component of business success” — better known as a sales presentation.

Here’s another story about it. The tour, catchily titled “Bank of America Small Business Speaker Series: A Conversation with Malcolm Gladwell,” is somehow supposed to make up for all of Bank of America’s recent failures. Instead, it clearly brands Gladwell as a clueless dilettante who’ll do anything as long as the money’s right. Between this and the poor reception to his recent ill-informed New Yorker piece about Steve Jobs, I’m pleased to see Gladwell’s thoughtlessness finally getting the attention it deserves.

17 replies on “Malcolm Gladwell: Ambassador for the 1%”

  1. I don’t really understand all the love and hate Gladwell gets. Is the hate just a reaction to the excessive love. I’ve read a bunch of his stuff and found most of it interesting. I think a lot of it is BS and some of it has some good points. I just don’t get the people who say he’s some crazy genius, nor do I get the people (hi, Paul!) who seem to hate him so much.

    I’m not saying there aren’t reasons to hate him, so if there are, just fill me in!

  3. His stuff is in the same vein as Freakanomics. It’s not completely wrong, but about as mind-blowing and insightful as an Ask Marilyn column in Parade.

  4. Having just started a small business I have to say that I went with BofA because they were much easier to work with and had better perks than our local credit union and the several local banks we talked to.

    That said I still hate them and moved my private banking to a credit union a couple months ago. 🙂

  5. This is a new PR tactic. Hire someone who poll’s as credible in your targeted demographic.

    For example, hire Micheal Moore to speak on behalf of car industry. Or a realistic example, a Greenpeace founder (Patrick Moore) to speak for the Canadian oil industry.

    The problem is it’s usually done too late, after people have made their minds. And the spokesperson loses all its previous credibility. So everyone loses.

  6. See my idea is to give small businesses no interest loans or even real investments to get startups going and hire workers.

    But, I should have instead suggested getting a high minded twit to orate on the pleasures of signing up for business checking and home owner lines of credit at 6%.

  12. @3 and 11, I agree.

    Some hippie stopped me years ago at the Fremont Market to tell me how “revoluntionary” Blink was with all the ideas about decision making. While she continued talking, I realized aloud, “Wait a minute, these sound like concepts I learned as an undergrad in many of my psych classes.”

    Basically, Malcolm is not wrong and is even a clean and accessible writer. He is, however, peddling profundities to the masses as his own, secretly hoping that people belief he came up with these ideas (Hippie lady is only proof that this is true).

  13. MG had some funny stories to tell on the Moth podcasts, mostly poking fun at his being a bit of an arse. But the books he wrote, well, I tried reading them, but found something better to do after about 5 minutes, like darning socks.

  15. @7: Don’t worry, the critic has also been incredibly scathing of Isaacson. I think we can critique Isaacson’s book and also Gladwell for not reading pablum and recognizing it as such.

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