Malcom Gladwell: Outliers

Malcolm has done it again. This is another great read. Lots of good stuff here, despite the fact that it might not get quite the acclaim of "The Tipping Point" and "Blink." Malcolm has a unique gift of following a hunch and then researching "the crap out of it" to see if the hypothesis holds water. It doesn't matter if he is 100% correct (who is?). What really matters is that he manages to move the conversation forward in interesting ways.

Want to get good at something? Put in your 10,000 hours. Want to become proficient in mathematics? Spend some time in the rice paddy. Now this rice paddy metaphor is quite interesting vis-a-vis building a brand online. It just ain't going to happen overnight. I am not sure that this was ever possible, but it certainly isn't any longer. There is too much noise. You have to put in a yeoman's effort to cut through the noise.

Most businesses are not willing to do it. It is not hard to understand why. It is often boring, tedious work. Want to rank high in Google? Who doesn't? Well that rice paddy is waiting for you, have at it! Yes our tools for leveraging new media keep improving but no one usually talks about the sweat equity required to make them pay.