Malcolm in the Middle East

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Blink.

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The Tipping Point.

With a slight frame, the unassuming voice of a US educated English gentleman and hair to match the Simpsons' ‘Sideshow Bob' character you would be forgiven for not recognising one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people. If you've picked up any sociological non-fiction from a bookstore's ‘top 10' shelves lately, however, you're more likely to recognise his writing style which is now acknowledged as of one of the most accessible and at the same time, ground-breaking of its kind in the 21st century.

Graduating with a degree in history from the University of Toronto's Trinity College in 1984, Malcolm Gladwell began writing science pieces for close to a decade between 1987 and 1996. However, he grew tired of getting nowhere, and turned his attention to journalism when, in his own words, he "failed to get a job in any other field" and secured the position of New York bureau chief for the Washington Post.

"I didn't set out to be a journalist at all, in fact I wanted to go into advertising but I just couldn't get a job," he laughs in his own distinctive shy and understated fashion. "So I muddled my way through and ended up in journalism. I'm quite happy to have chosen this in the end but there was nothing considered in my entry into this world."

Call it a stroke of luck, or, as his second bestseller Blink discussed ‘the power of thinking without thinking'. From the moment the multi-million-copy-selling book was released, Gladwell became an instant international phenomenon. In 2005 The New York Times mentioned that he had helped to create a "highly contagious hybrid genre of non-fiction, one that takes a non-threatening and counter-intuitive look at pop culture and the mysteries of the everyday", and one that has since spawned several number one sellers such as Freakonomics, a collection of case studies by economist Steven Levitt and journalist Stephen Dubner.

Suddenly economics and social studies became cool and all because of Gladwell.

Although he doesn't admit it during our time together he hints that he came about this style by mistake, however, his social science commentary came at precisely the moment when people and communities began using the internet to blog, ask themselves and each other questions they had never asked or had instant responses to, and crucially to generate billions of pages of self-created news, commentary and sites. But Gladwell has a far wider audience than that of his imitators and on Saturday November 17, will land in Dubai to prepare himself for his speech two days later at the now world-famous ‘Leaders in Dubai Conference'. Well-known for his lengthy and super intelligent speeches there's only slight problem - he readily admits to never having visited the emirate.

"I've never been to Dubai and I probably should have I know that, but I have to say I've heard so much about it that I'm very much looking forward to it.

"I only know what I've read in business and travel magazines. I can't wait to see it, it sounds so extraordinary. Someone told me that the amount of new office construction in the given year in Dubai is equal to the total amount in downtown Seattle. It just sounds crazy."

Only a day before our chat Dubai World announces a controversial US$5.2bn investment deal with MGM Mirage's hospitality, property and casino businesses. Gladwell confesses, in his dream-like tone, not to have heard about it. "I had no idea they had done that sort of deal. Many people think it is wrong for an Arab country to invest in casinos but I try to make the point in my book Blink that your first impressions and those kinds of judgements are only useful if you have relevant experience, and I don't have any on this particular subject," he explains.

Gladwell avoids focusing on news and current affairs but is an ace at viewing the bigger picture, events and elements of everyday life that we don't necessarily notice.

He is slated to talk about Tipping Point when in Dubai. The book discusses the huge implications of small-scale social events or ‘how little things can maker a big difference', while Blink explains how the human subconscious interprets events or cues and how past experiences allow people to make informed decisions in the blink of an eye. He refuses to talk about Dubai's Tipping Point, but has time to reflect before he is hounded with questions in eight weeks' time. "I haven't had a formal conversation with the organisers, but I have a lot of new material, so I would very much like to talk about some of that, but I imagine I'll be talking about things that come out of Blink, things to do with business judgement. I'll give them a whole bunch of possibilities and see what they get excited about," he says giggling.

You can tell Gladwell is gagging to talk about the new project he has embarked upon. The unnamed title is set to hit the bestseller charts in 2009 but the frizzy-haired thinker only gives me a hint of the material he is reading and the kind of people he is interviewing. And, rather bizarrely, why his current obsession is with 1970s and 1980s pop superstars Fleetwood Mac. As usual he has picked on something unique, something people will devour within days and talk to their friends about in bars and cafes across the world, and importantly something we can all understand.

"I've gotten very interested in things like ‘the context of innovation' and why certain ethnic groups are more successful than others. I've always been curious about this and this could be a direction I go in," he says, keeping me guessing.

Ecology, for example, is one of the most fertile grounds for innovative thinking - what are the contextual things we can do to encourage people to be creative? Is it something that can be planned? Or is it something that is simply a given?"

The best example he can give at such an early stage in the book writing process, he explains, is Fleetwood Mac, an element he is thinking of bring up in front of an expectant crowd in the Emirates.

"I'm asking the question whether innovation and success comes in different varieties?

There's a talk I've been developing that revolves around Fleetwood Mac and the idea that they only struck the big time when they released their fifteenth album," Gladwell says.

This is his major skill compared to other more mainstream authors. Using strong narrative powers, the UK-born, Canadian-raised and New York-resident writer marries serious social science research with a whole host of characters and easily digestible, but off-the-wall anecdotes.

"We instinctively think about rock bands that come bursting out of the gate, and it's not true. There's an equally important dialogue and innovation that takes a very long time to mature.

"I would argue that the result of that kind of slow maturing innovation is just as important as the kind that is fully formed. I'm going to discuss this idea that we need to expand our notion of what form innovation takes and be open to many different varieties," he adds.

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