This book looks at many of the similarities of evolution of genes and memes as has been put by other authors. The book also looks at the power laws associated with speed of activity, and how the requirements of a body, or city will diminish with the fourth root, the output will actually increase with the fourth root. This law doesn’t just apply to the physical world, but also applies to the digital world. The author then breaks does the innovations into two dimensions individualist vs. group and market vs. open source. He points out that the shift in the innovations of the past decades has been to group and open source. I think the principles of this book bring to mind some ideas that can be applied in larger settings, such that the previous norms will be destroyed, and replaced with much more open and fluid methods. I can think of a few markets that could use this kind of opening up. They open source does not need to be fully open, but only on the scale of a mostly open API. With your API and data being at the source of the platform. The example of this mostly open API that the author goes into detail about is twitter.
This book points out something i’ve been trying to do for a while. Doing things purposefully. The book states that doing purposeful practice is the way to become great at something. As the title is concerned it would be something along the lines of “Talent is not innate, but instilled by hard and purposeful work.” I am going to try doing things even more purposefully and trying to determine what practice would look like. I may start an analysis or creation of games group at work to get the best to help me be better.
This audiobook was an interesting listen. While I already knew many of the tenants discussed in it, as I work in silicon valley startups, I did notice a lot of ideas that I had not fully understood. The concept of free was something I knew existed but didn’t fully appreciate. Making you service free to get users, and then monetizing those users is a method that should not be dismissed as it is hard to compete with free. It is especially hard to compete with free done well. The book also pointed out that openness and crowdsourcing are good policies as you will get more help and better direction from the crowds than you will get by sitting in a room and thinking. You shouldn’t do everything your crowd says to do, but they will be a great source of ideas of where you could go. I hope to use these concepts in any startup I work on.
It's an Exciting World 