Very true about Gladwell. But I've picked up the original research too by Wolf and his book. It was Wolf's observation about what made Roseto like it is. Gladwell just restated it.
And as for the heart disease premise, you are totally right about there being a correlation that way. Which makes me curious though what would happen if we all just all stopped self promoting like you are trying to do. Would we all be just so much happier. On the blog right now someone brought up the example of Warren Buffet and how he doesn't do much self promotion. His results speak for themselves. And his website remains very stark.
I also thought of http://instapaper.com. A very popular and useful tool, and I can't find a review or testimonial on the entire stark, grey site. People just find out they need this tool and sign up. Even the itunes sales page - http://www.instapaper.com/iphone has nothing on it. No "Techcrunch calls it the best thing ever".
http://www.amazon.com/Power-Clan-Influence-Relationships-Dis...
And as for the heart disease premise, you are totally right about there being a correlation that way. Which makes me curious though what would happen if we all just all stopped self promoting like you are trying to do. Would we all be just so much happier. On the blog right now someone brought up the example of Warren Buffet and how he doesn't do much self promotion. His results speak for themselves. And his website remains very stark.
I also thought of http://instapaper.com. A very popular and useful tool, and I can't find a review or testimonial on the entire stark, grey site. People just find out they need this tool and sign up. Even the itunes sales page - http://www.instapaper.com/iphone has nothing on it. No "Techcrunch calls it the best thing ever".