joan garry

I think Malcolm Gladwell is a genius.  After I read The Tipping Point, I just decided to call him up on the phone.  I felt there were so many lessons for the gay rights movement to learn from the basic premise of this book.  In fact, you now hear folks talking about the Iowa decision (go Lambda Legal) as a ‘tipping point’ in the fight for marriage equality.

Malcolm Gladwell has just written a fantastic piece about underdogs.  It’s a piece about substituting effort for ability and where that can take you.  It’s in the current issue of The New Yorker.  It’s long and smart and worth it.  You can even change the font size and read it bigger!  Or print it out!    The piece is called How David Beats Goliath.

When I raise money for gay causes, I have been known to use the David / Goliath metaphor.  It’s a pretty powerful one.  When I get to the “pitch,”  I remind folks that the key to David’s victory was effort, persistence and a particularly good slingshot.  I then suggest that a donation is an investment in first rate slingshots.

But the whole metaphor, as you will read, has smaller and grander implications.  As I readit, I found myself thinking about my kids – how they work, how they learn.  I found myself thinking about colleagues and employees.

I just found myself doing a whole lot of thinking.   So have a read.