bart becks

Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell, who also wrote the interesting Blink and The Tipping point - has a new book named Outliers. Part of it is about people’s (business success). A lot of practice, a lot of luck - and for a big part: it’s not about you, but your context.

Here’s a Q&A from his site.

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What is Outliers about?

1. What is an outlier?

“Outlier” is a scientific term to describe things or phenomena that lie outside normal experience. In the summer, in Paris, we expect most days to be somewhere between warm and very hot. But imagine if you had a day in the middle of August where the temperature fell below freezing. That day would be outlier. And while we have a very good understanding of why summer days in Paris are warm or hot, we know a good deal less about why a summer day in Paris might be freezing cold. In this book I’m interested in people who are outliers—in men and women who, for one reason or another, are so accomplished and so extraordinary and so outside of ordinary experience that they are as puzzling to the rest of us as a cold day in August.

2. Why did you write Outliers?

I write books when I find myself returning again and again, in my mind, to the same themes. I wrote Tipping Point because I was fascinated by the sudden drop in crime in New York City—and that fascination grew to an interest in the whole idea of epidemics and epidemic processes. I wrote Blink because I began to get obsessed, in the same way, with the way that all of us seem to make up our minds about other people in an instant—without really doing any real thinking. In the case of Outliers, the book grew out a frustration I found myself having with the way we explain the careers of really successful people. You know how you hear someone say of Bill Gates or some rock star or some other outlier—”they’re really smart,” or “they’re really ambitious?’ Well, I know lots of people who are really smart and really ambitious, and they aren’t worth 60 billion dollars. It struck me that our understanding of success was really crude—and there was an opportunity to dig down and come up with a better set of explanations
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MGM partners with youtube to launch several new channels featuring fan-favorite clips, full-length tv shows and films

MGM & youtube bundle up to launch several new channels featuring fan-favorite clips, full-length tv shows and films

you may wonder if this is so amazing. Well, firstly the CEO of MGM (Harry Sloan) is the former Founder & Chairman of SBS Broadcasting, where I served as Senior Vice President of New Media.

Secondly, one of our projects for which I moved to LA is touched by this announcement.

As said earlier, I will (try to) communicate on nothing until begin 2009. But it’s looking pretty good :!

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(from: www.flyingchaz.com)

Mary Meeker does it again - her web2.0 state of the industry

At the web2.0 conference in SF, Mary Meeker gave her yearly web2.0 ’state of the industry’ presentation. Even if I’m not going over there this time, Mary always captures a certain essence what’s happening and coming.

My takeaways:
1. the impact of the economic crisis, a respectively horrible and bleak outlook for respectively the ‘old ‘ and ‘new’ media, the correlation with GDP and the falling CPM ‘crash’ especially for the user generation platform (youtubes, social networks) - and thereby bad news for a project I am involved in
2. the gaining impact and possibilities of mobile devices - and hence, good news for 2 of the projects I am involved in
3. the growth and scale of the emerging countries - and some facts I still need to digest to understand what kind of news this is for another (non-profit) undertaking I am involved in

And some closing remarks on amazon, which is about the become my most admired company of the year agai

Mary’s perspectives are always interesting - and even if Obama gives an overwhelming feeling of enthusiasm, we still remain in a weird economical cycle - in which there is a thin line between Max Levchin’s (slide.com) approach to “listen to no-one and go for your own beliefs” or Fred Wilson (united square capital) “listen to everyone, and take your own conclusions

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Football player stuck in rollercoaster

Mbokani is a football (soccer) players from Belgium - and after playing some contested matches, he went out to visit “la foire de Liège” - and managed to get … stuck in a rollercoaster.

PS: watch the movie long enough to hear David Steegen laugh out loud. Besides a former colleague at at BelgacomTV and a personal friend, David is the kind of guy that brings good atmosphere to teams, organisations and (in this case) tv programs. (and also imo one of the most talented sports/media persons from Belgium! - enough compliments for the year now though)

McCain wins ?

(from: www.flyingchaz.com )

Obama time

It has been a long time since I’ve watched a commercial for more than 20 seconds… It remains a biased advertising, but about the best commercial political ad I have ever seen.
For a project, I re-constructed the digital media campaigning of Obama, McCain and Hillary - and it is amazing to see how well the web was used to get ideas from the crowd, spread the message and get connected to the younger generation (not to mention the fund collection) …
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Welcome to the social world

Even if it’s somewhat US focussed and not all data are correct imho, quite interesting presentation by razorfish about the world of social media.

Hello to all,
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The future of cycling

from: www.flyingchaz.com

CERA - a third generation EPO drug - is creating yet another shockwave through the cycling world: Kohl, Schumacher, Piepoli are also caught..

Although sad and sport destroying, I think the drug problem is inevitable.

Imagine being 31, having worked somewhere in a very hard and mind killing job, and you are just good enough to become a professional cyclist. You love it. It’s what you always wanted to do, and you are cycling since you are 14. And even if it is hard work to train in all kinds of weather - it is your dream come through. And then you feel that it is going a little less. First 3 months, you don’t panic. Then, after another 3 months - you hear that your sponsor is not going to keep the entire team because of the crisis, and you realize you may be cut off the team. There seem no other teams interested in hiring you. You start panicking. If in the next 3 months, you are not in a great shape, you will get fired. This means you have to go back to a mind numbing job, which you hate. Everything but that job. Someone, who identified you situation, says he has something new. A harmless drug. Untreceable. Totally untrackable. After one month you already feel better. YES. You are back.

Nobody defends drugs. My point is that in life, many people weigh of the burdens of choices, and try to do what’s best for themselves and their family. So muscle enhancing drugs will never leave sports - because they allow the winners to become champions, but certainly because they allow good sportsman to live their dream. All the cheaters must be evicted. No apologies, no excuses. And sentencing must be heavy, probably 4 or 5 years (or life) that you cannot be a professional cyclist. Because you are a role model and an example for our young generation. (That said: I wish we could evict some politicians and business man to life without politics and business for the same reason. Parliament would nearly be empty.)
But human survival and dreams makes that drugs in sport will always remain a problem.

Anyway - I’ve introduced my 9 months old Charlie with me on my bike (see photo). It’s the most beautiful sport, despite the mess, the misery and the corruption. Let’s hope we sort out of how control and manage the cycling sport - because charlie looks like having cycling legs.

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Sequoia capital and Ron Conway ring the silicon valley alarm bell

Sequio capital, the most succesfull Venture capitalist (see here for an impressive overview of their investment - if you know they were early from Apple to Electronic Arts to Google to Yahoo or Youtube and many more), rings the alarm bell.

Main message: raising capital will be a lot more difficult, cut all costs, bootstrap it all, introduce zero sum budgeting and get out of those fancy expensive building in order to get cashflow positive as quickly as positive. The downturn of economy may be longer than expected, thus many years. If it ever recovers fully… Gigaom has a good article. Angel investor Ron Conway has the same believes.

Facebook however keeps the focus on growth - and although some interesting test with new models are to be introduced, the aim is to be number 1 globally, and have a business plan ready in 3 years. Future will tell.

My take: let’s cut where possible and cut all you don’t need. But let’s not lose the good ideas in the downturn. I am currently involved in many startups, and for all the product is amazing and I hope the needed budgets follow through.
Most impacting innovations are created during tough periods - and the commitment to the idea and its execution will only be enhanced in this period. But cut all that doesn’t help the cause of the company.

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Digital media - not a walk in the park either

Today afternoon I was able to grab a small part of the IAB Belgium yearly conference (IAB is Interactive Advertising Bureau). Frederick Marckini, CEO of iProspect gave probably the most understandable speech about search I heard in a long time. The guys from Trendone gave an interesting view on the future (although I am no fun of the acting method presentation style) - and Klaas Verbeke from Amphion gave a presentation about the Coca Cola’s ‘the real ray’ case that achieved fantastic results on Netlog. I had seen Klaas his presentation before - and besides the fact he put a lot of effort in making a clear and beautifully designed presentation, Klaas is a gifted speaker and one of the upcoming online marketing talents in Belgium. Someone to watch.

However, the impact of the financial and industrial crisis start to weigh on all media. TV and print are suffering most, but the impact and the uncertain future quarters announces a tough period for all.

Many (many) eyes are focused on Google, who will announce their results shortly. Over the last months, the dominant king everybody loved, has not only become a little less loved - but is showing slowing results too. You can find 2 interesting articles about Google on Alleyinsider and Techcrunch .

Why so much focus on Google ? Because Google represents approximately 40 % (fourty) of the total ad market, and their AdSense program is the lifeline of many. Many!

However, another trend I notice is that there is an increase of startups . Although some smart people like Ron Conway recommend not the leave your dayjobs in any case - it is also true that the true innovations were conceived in ‘recession times’. Future will tell. Good luck to everyone, whatever industry in these tough times.

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