This weekend I finished reading Blink by Malcom Gladwell. I first heard about this book from Bruce Schneier’s writing about it. It’s a fascinating book that was very easy to read. I highly recommend the book to anyone interested in high speed decision making.

In some ways it is difficult to describe what the book is really about and “high speed decision making” isn’t really all that accurate. I think the primary thing that I took away from this book is that despite the current trend in thinking more information about a problem does not always result in the best decision. In fact, it’s quite possible to have too much information about a problem to solve it correctly. This applies to all kinds of problems from crime fighting to computer programming.

Of course, Blink is about much, much more than just information overload issues. It discusses all aspects of how the subconscious mind makes decisions quickly and how we can learn to understand when those “hunches” are accurate. I think some of the implications of this in the security business are just as breathtaking as the ones that Bruce Schneier mentions.

This sort of reasoning might also apply to the design of just about everything. Ask any designer about what makes a truly “good” design and invariably you’ll find out that there’s an aesthetic quality to it. This aesthetic quality is likely best analyzed, at least initially, by the subconscious mind. Most people have an initial “Blink” impression of an iPod that just screams to them about the quality of the product overall. If this was taken into account during the design of other systems, then perhaps the quality of all designs would be improved.

All in all, Blink is an excellent book. I’m definitely interested in reading Tipping Point now. Almost everyone I talked to about Blink asked me if I had read Tipping Point and recommended it when they found out I hadn’t.