“I knew I wanted to be a writer from as far back as I can remember. That was my talent. Lord knows it wasn't math.” Quote by Kevin Maney
“I reluctantly signed up for a journalism major, thinking I needed a fall-back way to make money should my career as a novelist fail to take off. As I started to try on journalism, including doing internships and working at the campus paper, I found I actually liked it. So I started to want to be a journalist.” ThinkingWayWantShouldTryingFallFoundCareersFailingNeededPaperMajorsIncludingJournalismMaking MoneyJournalistNovelistsCampusFall BackInternships Author:Kevin Maney
“I'm that tech writer who gets on stage and plays funny tech songs. I wouldn't want that to be all I'm known for, but it's a bit of a differentiator.” WantPlaySongBitsKnownStage Author:Kevin Maney
“Every purchasing decision involves a trade-off between what I call fidelity and convenience. Fidelity is the total experience of something - how great the experience is. Convenience is how easy it is to get something. A live concert is a high fidelity way to experience music; an MP3 file is a high convenience way to experience music. Depending on the situation, one or the other is probably pretty appealing. What's not appealing is something that offers neither.” WayEasyDecisionSituationOffersTradeConcertsFilesConvenienceFidelityPurchasingTrade OffsMp3Live ConcertsHigh Fidelity Author:Kevin Maney
“A CD these days is not all that convenient, and it doesn't bring enough fidelity to make you put up with that inconvenience. So, nobody buys CDs anymore.” EnoughThese DaysConvenientFidelityCdsInconvenience Author:Kevin Maney
“High fidelity is a rich experience, and you'll put up with terrible convenience to get it - maybe it's high cost, waiting in line, jumping through hoops. High convenience is the opposite - it's a commodity, but it's cheap and easy and ubiquitous. A great exclusive boutique shop is high fidelity; Wal-Mart is high convenience. Both are hard to establish in their own way. The thing to remember about sustaining either is that you can't sit still. Some other entity will always find a way to challenge your fidelity position or your convenience position.” WayStillsHardRememberEasyWaitingChallengesLinesRichPositionTerribleCostOppositesShopsEntityCommodityJumpingExclusiveConvenienceFidelitySustainingWaiting In LineHigh Fidelity Author:Kevin Maney
“Talented people can predict with great accuracy what's about to happen just a tiny bit ahead of their competitors. It might be two seconds ahead, or two hundredths of a second, or two days. Napoleon on an eighteenth century battlefield had something more like a two-day advantage. Wayne Gretzky in a hockey game was probably a second ahead of everyone else on the ice.” PeopleTwoMightHappensGamesBitsCenturyAdvantageTinyIceHockeySecondsCompetitorsBattlefieldsAccuracyWayneTwo DaysGretzky Author:Kevin Maney
“Wayne Gretzky's talent doesn't come from studying everything he's experienced in hockey and making long-term game plans. It comes from constantly taking in all the data that's happening in the moment on the ice, and instantly generating constant predictions based on super-efficient mental models he's built in his head. Technology has to work more like Gretzky.” LongMomentsGamesTermTechnologyStudyPlansTalentModelsHappeningsBuiltConstantIceDataLong TermHockeyEfficientPredictionsWayneGame PlanGretzky Author:Kevin Maney
“Now companies tend to mine gigantic databases for insights into what might happen six months from now. That might always be valuable, but there's a different kind of value - and a competitive edge - in processing ongoing streams of data through a software model that can quickly and constantly make predictions about, say, whether a certain customer is going to defect, or an aircraft is going to run into trouble.” KindDifferentMightHappensRunningCertainValuesCompanyTroubleMinesMonthsSixModelsEdgesValuableInsightCustomersDataStreamsSoftwareDifferent KindsPredictionsDefectsSix MonthsOngoingProcessingAircraftDatabases Author:Kevin Maney
“Some people seem to have extreme natural wiring - a talent that seems to come out of nowhere. Like a music savant or prodigy. The uplifting news, though, is that many talented people don't have such natural wiring - but they forge a talent through thousands of hours of what's known as deliberate practice or deliberate performance.” PeopleSeemsHoursNaturalKnownPracticeTalentNewsPerformancesExtremesUpliftingDeliberateProdigiesWiringSavantsDeliberate Practice Author:Kevin Maney
“Anybody can develop a certain amount of talent at something. However, the supremely talented - the superstars - are people who have married a gift of brain wiring to those thousands of hours of practice, usually in favorable circumstances.” PeopleCertainHoursBrainPracticeTalentAmountCircumstancesMarriedSuperstarWiring Author:Kevin Maney