The Heart and Mind

I previously discussed the Edge books: smart, brief discussions about a variety of topics. In particular, What Are You Optimistic About? is interesting in how it allows the thought leaders of today to explain why the future is actually getting better. In a time like ours, which I see as fairly pessimistic, this is a great read. The inspiration for today's link is how this book is a collection of brief essays: each entry is no more than a couple of pages long, and many are significantly shorter. It's a buffet for your brain: a little Jared Diamond, some Judith Rich Harris, a dash of Steven Pinker, Richard Dawkins, Brian Greene, and many others...

The movie Paris, Je T'Aime is a group of vignettes, each with a very small cast, and each by a different director. Most are interesting and touching, and they all take place, of course, in Paris. There are 18 vignettes, each in a different arrondissment, and each with a distinct feel. There's Olivier Assayas, Alfonso Cuarón, the Coen brothers, Tom Tykwer, and Gus van Sant. There's Juliette Binoche (of course!), Nick Nolte, Natalie Portman, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Elijah Wood and Steve Buscemi. It was really fun to watch the incredible cast and phenomenal group of directors have a go at conveying the feel of Paris.

Reflexive explanation

In the book The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell describes three types of people, all of whom can combine to make great things happen, that is, to help ideas/items/fads/fashions/etc. reach their own tipping point and become an epidemic. The three kinds of people are mavens, connectors and salesmen.

Mavens know everything: where to get the best of everything, where to get the best price, how to game the market. They are the connoisseurs, helpers and educators. Salesmen, of course, infect their co-converationalists with whatever they're interested in, be it a mood or an item or an idea.

And finally, there are Connectors. These are the folks who know everyone. If you were to look at a social networking website (facebook, linkedin) you would find some people to be 'nodes' on the social network; these are the connectors. The important point about connectors, though, is that they have mastered the 'weak link'. They aren't best friends with everyone in their network; there isn't enough time in the day for that. But they maintain a casual, friendly connection to each person in their network. On top of all of this, connectors know people who move in different circles. One connector that Gladwell describes knew people in 8 or 10 different circles: politicians, actors, writers, doctors and so on.

Gladwell described a classic study 'Getting A Job' by sociologist Mark Granovetter. Of professionals who had discussed a job hunt with people they knew, and for whom those contacts had helped them to get a job, 56% were 'weak ties' as compared with 17% that were closer friends. This is the point: the important connections are the weak ties.

And this is also the point of this website. I am proposing that the weak ties are the ones that will help you to find new and interesting works that you might not have found otherwise. If you were to go to the bookstore, The Black Swan and The Long Tail are displayed next to one another, but The Black Swan and What Are You Optimistic About? probably never would be. They are in different circles. The proposition of this website is to show how these circles overlap in unexpected and surprising and interesting ways.

I hope you'll enjoy it, and I hope even more that you'll contribute.

Grey swans and optimism

As an aside to the last post, The Black Swan shows how ridiculous it is for humans to make predictions: we're terrible at it. So I was both pleased and disappointed to see the Taleb had not contributed to the current Edge book, What Are You Optimistic About? edited by John Brockman. On the contrary, he was (appropriately) a contributor to What We Believe But Cannot Prove. These Edge books are pretty phenomenal in terms of the contributors: they are generally the thought leaders of today. Check them out.