Gladwell on FBI Profilers, new book on the workplace of the future

Posted by Luke Gilman

November 10, 2007

Malcolm Gladwell, the author of Blink and The Tipping Point takes on the subject of FBI profilers in typical fashion in Dangerous Minds: Criminal profiling made easy.. Noting the successes of well-known profilers throughout the FBI’s history - James Brussel, Howard Teten, John Douglas and Robert Ressler - Gladwell turns to recent empirical research to question whether there’s really any predictive power behind these profiles or whether their techniques are closer to the cold reading techniques of astrologers and psychics.

It should also be noted that Gladwell’s recent, notable absence from blogging and from the pages of the New Yorker was to spent holed up writing his third book, which Kottke reveals as “the future of the workplace with subtopics of education and genius.”