Jul
14
When I read Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means, I felt strongly that I am to work towards being a “connector” or a “hub,” one who brings people and organizations together. I’m beginning to look at my life differently after reading this book.
Purpose:
How is everything connected to everything else?
What does it mean for science, business and everyday life?
Central Message:
The Nature of Networks
Barabasi, a physicist, discovered that networks use logarithmic distribution, highly-linked nodes grow faster, and networks undergo phase transitions.
- Logarithmic Distribution: Instead of random distribution or bell curve distributions, the distribution of links in a network is determined by logarithmic power laws. If you remember log tables from math, log numbers increase by powers of ten. 2 is ten times larger than 1, 3 is 100 times larger than 1, and so on. This means some nodes have all the links and most nodes only have a few links.
Earthquakes are measured by log numbers: A magnitude 2.0 is ten times more severe than a magnitude 1.0, a 3.0 is 100 times stronger, and so on.
On the web, the top websites have ten times more links than the next set, 100 times more links than the third set, and 1,000 times more links than the fourth set. Google’s Page Ranking technology is based on log distribution. A website with Google PageRank 5 (PR5) is ten times bigger than a website with PR4, 100x a PR3, 1,000X a PR2, and 10,000X a PR1 website.
This means the third link at Google is only going to get 1/1,000th the number of visits compared to #1. If you continue down the list, it’s extremely unlikely that #25 will get any traffic at all. This works with practically everything on websites: a few pages of a website get most of the visits, most of the searches are based on a few keywords, and so on. They are all based on log number distributions.
For example, if you are using Google Adwords for advertising, then you must bid enough to be in the top three positions. Lower than that, you will get very little traffic. - Big Nodes Grow Faster: As new nodes enter the network, they are more likely to link to highly-linked nodes than low-link nodes, because the highly-linked nodes are easier to reach, because they are highly linked. This feedback loop gives preference to the large nodes. Namely, the rich get richer. Networks grow according to the 80/20 rule. Barabasi calls this “preferential linking.”
- Networks undergo phase transition. This means that when a critical threshold (the tipping point) is crossed, the all of the nodes undergo a phase transition and starts acting as a single entity. The property of the network is shared among all nodes in the network. For example, when you boil water, the water acts like ordinary water as it heats up. But at some point, all of the water suddenly starts to boil. There is no “low temperature boiling” or localized boiling. In terms of web markets, there can be a number of dotcoms that are selling dogfood, and at first, the various websites will be different. But when the market niche crosses a certain size, a few of the dotcoms become very large (the 20%) and the remainder (80%) stay same. But they all take on the properties of the group: they all adapt the same general standards.
http://www.andreas.com/faq-barabasi.html
Validations:
Applications:
- Companies that pursue a “business is war” model will be at a self-inflicted disadvantage. They create few links, newcomers don’t link to them, business cycle downturns leave them stranded, and so on.
- Companies that embed themselves into the social network of an industry by creating lots of contacts (links) to other companies, suppliers, industry magazines, customers, government, and workers will grow, because the node with the most links will get more links. At some point, the industry (the network) will undergo a phase transition from “just a bunch of separate companies” into an industry. The core companies become institutionalized and they own the industry. Their internal standards become the industry’s standard. Pareto’s 80/20 Rule applies and the 20% will get 80% of the revenues. Due to the law of preferential linking, newcomers will be effectively locked out of the industry.
Value:
Barabasi feels like Networks will be the central science of the 21st century.
Jul
14
Love Is The Killer App – Beyond the Appendix Booklist
Filed Under Business Ideas, Resources, Principles, etc., Education and Love for Learning, Free Book Summary - Online
I just purchased Love Is the Killer App: How to Win Business and Influence Friends and I’ve noticed many good books to read that are not listed in Tim Sanders’ appendix. I’m going to list them here so that I remember to read them:
The Love Cat Way
- The Brand Mindset: Five Essential Strategies for Building Brand Advantage Throughout Your Company
- Information Masters: Secrets of the Customer Race
- Net Gain: Expanding Markets Through Virtual Communities
- Co-Opetition : A Revolution Mindset That Combines Competition and Cooperation : The Game Theory Strategy That’s Changing the Game of Business
- Customers.Com : How to Create a Profitable Business Strategy for the Internet and Beyond
- Customer Capitalism: The New Business Model of Increasing Returns in New Market Spaces
Knowledge
- The Innovator’s Dilemma
- eBrands: Building an Internet Business at Breakneck Speed
- The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
- The Anatomy of Buzz: How to Create Word-Of-Mouth Marketing
- Getting into Your Customer’s Head: The Eight Roles of Customer-Focused Selling
- Leading the Revolution: How to Thrive in Turbulent Times by Making Innovation a Way of Life
- The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living
- Toward a Psychology of Being (An Insight Book)
- Brandwidth
- Who Moved My Cheese?
- Built to Last
The 4 steps of Application:
- Own the book’s Big Thought
- Visualize a Discussion
Ten Must Read Books for “Lovecats”
The Experience Economy-
Corporate Religion -
The Innovator’s Dilemma -
What the CEO Wants You to Know -
Simplicity: The New Competitive Advantage -
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can… -
The Circle of Innovation -
The Art of Happiness -
Love -
Leading the Revolution
Jul
12
When John Jonas, a Search Engine Marketing guru, carefully notiiced that his google adsense pages were getting hit by Mediapartners-Google, he thought that maybe hitting your adsense pages would get google to index the pages faster. I wondered if John was onto something but a quick search for “google adsense google index” yielded a negative response. Still, I wanted to try it to see if it would work because John was claiming otherwise. Well, I’ve very carefully tested it with new pages at www.familylearn.com and the verdict is in. John, it seems, is not right. This was my test. I added a few thousand new pages of content on FamilyLearn on July 6, 2004 and then set up a script to call the pages so that they would serve adsense one time. Then I very carefully watched the logs for Googlebot. Well, Mediapartners-Google came on schedule but Googlebot didn’t follow. I figure John must be incorrect because over a week later, there are still no pages indexed that were not hit directly by the Googlebot. Also, Googlebot hasn’t showed up searching content that Mediapartners-Google hit. I could still be wrong, but my impression after this test is that Adsense doesn’t help your pages get indexed any faster. Perhap’s John’s success was Googlebot finding a bunch of his pages at the same time that he tried the Adsense test?
Jun
28
Great talk sponsored by www.hillsdale.edu. The Imprimis is an excellent publication and I recommend it to anyone:
http://www.hillsdale.edu/newimprimis/2004/june/default.htm
Jun
28
Direct Marketing, in spite of a poor image, is really stirring the business world.
Filed Under Business Ideas, Resources, Principles, etc.
Look at this article from FORTUNE:
http://www.fortune.com/fortune/services/sections/fortune/corp/2003_08direct.html
Jun
28
Great Hosting Service
Filed Under Business Ideas, Resources, Principles, etc., Search Engine Marketing
Paul Allen found a great deal on hosting with great bandwidth capabilities:
http://www.bluehost.com/
I need to save it for future reference. Thanks Paul. Another great resource is www.nureal.com which offers a great multisite package.
http://www.infobaseventures.com/blog/2004/06/09.html#a103
Finally, for www.familylearn.com we are going to switch to www.uvnet.net to host our servers. They have great packages and a more flexible plan than www.xmission.com
Jun
28
Focus on customer experience, not member acquisition.
Filed Under Business Ideas, Resources, Principles, etc., Search Engine Marketing
In an interview with Scott Heiferman, CEO of www.meetup.com, nPost asked:
What are your insights into entrepreneurship?
Scott: Focus on how you are helping people. Most companies are focused on helping people somehow. Whether the company that runs basic services, they are providing a needed service. More often than not people get so wrapped up in the scheme around the business that they lose track of the core value. They are talking more about member acquisition, when they should really be talking about how to ensure that customers are enjoying what they are doing.
nPost: They may have lost focus on the core value they provide to customers.
Scott: At the end of the day measure your success by whether you or helping people or not. So many things fail when people lose focus on what they are providing to customers.
http://www.npost.com/interview.jsp?intID=INT00099
Jun
28
Breaking Tradition/ Changing A Paradigm
Filed Under Business Ideas, Resources, Principles, etc., Genealogy to Family History to FamilyLearn, Search Engine Marketing
I was talking to Trisha just the other day about how difficult it is to get people to change their habits for a new and better product. Just now when I had the chance to purchase cheaper high speed internet and a different cell phone service, I didn’t because I didn’t want to take the time to deal with it. It wasn’t worth it to me. Breaking tradition or making a paradigm shift is never going to be easy and quite frankly, that is what we are trying to do with www.familylearn.com. The industry is currently focused on data, names, dates and places. FamilyLearn is a new way to approach family history and life, learning from one another and our ancestors. But, from a marketing standpoint, this is going to be a very difficult task indeed. Seth Godin, the famous blogger recently pointed out: “You should also care if you’re trying to build something big and important. Because big and important things often come from changing the tradition. And if you can invent a new tradition, a new tradition around your innovation, that’s when you win big time.” ( http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2004/06/tradition.html )
Jun
28
The Most Influential and Impactful People I’ve Met Live This Principle
Filed Under Business Ideas, Resources, Principles, etc., Education and Love for Learning, Genealogy to Family History to FamilyLearn, Home, Family and Church, Ideas and Thoughts, Search Engine Marketing
The principle is in the article that is on love and I found it on Paul Allen’s blog:
LOVE
Certain People have personified this for me and I’m sure there are more:
My wife, who truly loves others more than herself.
My Mother, who loved our family enough to go through so much for us.
Alan Fluckiger, American Heritage Academy, who helped me realize my inborn love for learning again.
Dr. Edward Green, General Manager at Family Literacy Centers, Inc., who taught me the power of raising others rather than ourselves.
Dllon Inouye, Professor at BYU, who taught me the power of relationships and excellence.
Paul Merrill, Professor at BYU, Professor at BYU, who cared more for student success than his own.
Paul Allen, Internet Entreprenuer, Infobase Ventures, LLC, who openned my eyes to the goodness in business.
John Jonas, Internet Entreprenuer, Programmer and Friend, Search Engine Marketing Expert, who isn’t afraid to make mistakes and sets an example for me of a love for learning as well as always being there for FamilyLearn.
Jason Johnson, CPA, Entreprenuer, Mentor and Friend, FamilyLearn Vice President, who has risked so much for a love for FamilyLearn with me–mission driven.
Jun
22
Children are never too young to start learning about genealogy this article says.
http://morningsun.net/stories/062004/loc_20040620038.shtml
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