Influence

Here’s the dirty secret about reporters: they steal from Wikipedia. Shamelessly, in fact. How do I know? Because I see things I wrote for articles magically paraphrased in all sorts of press – collections of facts that did not exist before I collected them.

Bloggers do for their posts. People do it for their opinions. Investors do it for their trading strategies. Reporters do it for their stories. Wikipedia, for all its inaccuracies, is the jumping off point for things we’d never question trusting. And yet, what company do you know that has ever meaningful contributed to community that has the ability to define them?

When you think about influence, think about where it comes from. In other words, it’s not the trendsetting magazines that are important but the places where they find out about trends. That’s where you go because the rest is just too inefficient.

But remember, that’s a very substantial power. Abuse makes it meaningless.

(Also, if I wasn’t physically unable to fit one more thing in my day, I would jump on this opportunity just for fun)

Written by Ryan Holiday
Ryan Holiday is the bestselling author of Trust Me, I’m Lying, The Obstacle Is The Way, Ego Is The Enemy, and other books about marketing, culture, and the human condition. His work has been translated into thirty languages and has appeared everywhere from the Columbia Journalism Review to Fast Company. His company, Brass Check, has advised companies such as Google, TASER, and Complex, as well as Grammy Award winning musicians and some of the biggest authors in the world. He lives in Austin, Texas.