I highly recommend Malcolm Gladwell’s latest article in the New Yorker entitled, “Open Secrets”.

While the article is obstensibly about Enron, Gladwell is developing a much larger theme here about the shift, in our ever more complex world, from puzzles to mysteries. Puzzles have answers and simply require more information to solve. On the other hand, mysteries do not have precise answers and more data typically makes determing a likely outcome more difficult. The article explores this theme in the realms of business, medicine, and foreign intelligence.

Expect to see Gladwell dig up some other fun applications of the theory. This is just the type of sprawling topic with broad applicability that Gladwell can turn into a bestseller (seemingly) overnight.

Guy Kawasaki has an interesting post on money as a social barrier.

According to Guy, participants in a study that were cued to think of money spent 70% more time before asking for help and 50% lesss time assisting others.

Guy concludes:

This may be my own twisted logic… , but this study has important—and perhaps counter-intuitive and even puzzling—implications vis-a-vis the evangelism of products and services. That is, if a company brings money into an evangelistic relationship with its customers, it could create barriers and instead of incentives—for example, if Apple, Harley-Davidson, and Tivo paid their customers to spread the word. After all, evangelism is the process of selling dreams, and selling dreams doesn’t necessarily require monetization.

I do think that introducing money would have a dampening effect on evangelism. But the study struck me as particularly apt in relation to Google Answers being taken to the woodshed to be put out of its misery this week.

According to Google’s Blog, only 800 or so people answered questions over the life of the product. Alternatively, Yahoo Answers is thriving with with over 60 million unique worldwide monthly visitors, who have written 160 million answers to questions.

So whats the difference between the two services?

Google used a pay for answers model. Yahoo opted for a free model.

Of course, there are good reasons for why Google went with that model (Michael Arrington does a good job of laying them out), but the fact of the matter is, money likely depresses not only the number of people that will ask questions, but the number of people who will answer them.

I don’t know if there is anything too it, but the study that Kawasaki references just might hold a key to why Google’s model ultimately failed.

Marginal Revolution has an interesting theory of reciprocity when it comes to relationships:

The symmetry thesis: A given person likes (loves) you as much as you like (love) him or her.

Interesting model. Fun to try and poke holes in, but in general I tend to believe it.

I made a mix last night (music not cake).

As I added a hip-hop track entitled “Love Song” (by K-O’s) to the playlist, I was reminded of the suprisingly little known, but lovely duet of the same name by Madonna and Prince. Same name, but certainly not the same song. I then realized that a favorite song of mine from college - this one a folkish tune from Jonatha Brooke when she was in a band called The Story - shared the same name. Actually, 2 songs from college. The Bush Babees did a collab with De La Soul and Mos Def (before he and Talib formed Black Star) entitled… “Love Song.”

And let’s just say that I have been known to appreciate Tesla’s “Love Song” (and *cough* the Cure’s).

I got to thinking, artists must spend all of their lives trying to write a song that is worthy of the title “Love Song.” You can write love songs everyday, but you have to name them something else. It’s rare when you can just say, this song is so good, I am going to name it “Love Song,” and yes I am sure, and yes I know that I can only name one song in my career “Love Song,” and this is it.

I figured if I downloaded a whole bunch of songs called “Love Song” I would have wicked collection of eclectic music that was, on average, pretty damn good since naming a song “Love Song” is like an endorsement. It is. You can’t name just any old half assed song “Love Song. ” It’ll crack under the pressure. It would be like naming a kid God. You just don’t do that.

Well… apparently some people do.

Spend a few minutes listening to these singers’ contributions to the “Songs entitled Love Song” Canon and you realize that nothing is sacred:

Right Said Fred
Marilyn Manson
Insane Clown Posse
Stone Temple Pilots
Kenny G
Kenny Loggins

And for added insult:

Hanson.

There are actually 636 “Love Song” songs in the canon. (according to allmusic.com).

I saw Dave Chappelle at what used to be the Boston Comedy Club on 3rd Street last year. It was an impromptu show, he literally walked in off the street and asked if he could do a set. I was lucky enough to be next door and was alerted by a friend that he was there. Dave immediately lit into me when I entered the room.

“Damn! Look at this big nigga. You look like you could fuck somebody up! Where you from?”

“Ohio”

“You know I live in Ohio…”

“Oh yeah? Whereabouts?”

“Green County”

“What on earth are you doing in Green County?”

“What the hell you thing I’m doing in Green County?”, he said as he put his index finger and thumb together and made the universal sign for smoking weed.

He was mostly off that night. He seemed drunk or high. Too drunk. Too high. He was having a hard time staying on his stool and his jokes were all off the top. He seemed erratic.

Needless to say, when he quit the show a few weeks later, I wasn’t surprised and was able to tell my “yeah he didn’t look so good” story for the next couple of weeks.

When my friend sent me the link to the Chappelle Theory, I was intrigued. It is authored by an alleged retired public relations executive and posits that a cabal of influential black media moguls and politicos exerted their influence and power over Dave and drove him to mental ruin. Think Oprah, Bob Johnson, Farrakahn, Cosby, et al. The reason? He was making black people look bad. While the theory is preposterous, the story is flawlessly told and it is a fun exercise in the “what if?”

Cut to Chappelle’s recent interview with Oprah.

Read this article from the Washington Post after you have familiariazed yourself with the theory.

Freaky huh?

Update: Chappelle Theory was authored by anti-social.com.

I think business could learn a lot from sports. We should wear jersey’s with our name and number on them at work (I would be number 4). We should celebrate, throw high fives and do a little dance after a particularly well executed presentation. We should keep stats and make them public. At the end of your career you could get your number retired if you were really good. I think it would raise moral, increase effectiveness and accountability and increase organizational memory.

What were Johnson’s stats last year?

He had an EPR (effective presentation ratio) of .875?

Impressive.