My biggest beef with the presentation was that it was an ongoing string of generalities about famous people. Had absolutely nothing to do with teaching kids. And throughout, I felt like the whole thing just sounded canned.
Little did I or anyone else know that Mr. Gladwell just gave a 'strikingly' similar speech a few weeks ago: to the United Way.
It is impressive to hear someone like Gladwell talk. He didn't use notes and he was able to recite facts and statistics from memory that always tends to blow my mind. In an effort to do something a little different last night he decided to give three lessons to be learned from the story of Fleetwood Mac. One of the hallmarks of a great speaker for me is their ability to entertain, to get their messages across and if they can surprise you at the same time then its a huge bonus! Gladwell delivered ... Fleetwood Mac as a topic for the United Way major donors!
The blogger at the Eagle Blog goes on to describe exactly how Mr. Gladwell related the history of Fleetwood Mac to the work of the United Way.
And guess what?
Looks like it was mostly the same speech he just gave to NECC.
I find this to be the ultimate in pandering. Given the opportunity to give a keynote to the biggest ed tech conference in the world, at least do us the honor of giving a unique speech.
At least something we can't already find on Google.
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