What Do I Need to Know?

I forgot that I said this but a long time ago I wrote that The Long Tail was a theory you HAD to be familiar with. Someone else asked what other theories should be required knowledge for young people. I can only answer what works for me, but I’ll give it a shot.

You should know Alinsky’s strategies for community organizing, John Robb’s theory of networked, guerrilla warfare, what Matt Mason calls “the Pirate’s dilemma”, the concept of a “blue oceans” Wikinomics (specifically, ideagoras or information bazaars) and I like Rob Walker’s “murketing.” You could also make the case that a healthy understanding of how hustlers create advantage, as compared to normal entrepreneurs, is increasingly important.

A couple others I might add, would be Snark (not the book, read this article) and narcissism/narrative fallacy, for the reason that they both derail and delude a lot of people online.

You could read all the books and I’ve linked to them before but thought it might be interesting if I tried to define all of them over the next few weeks. We could put it together into some kind of introduction for beginners. Your thoughts and input are welcome below.

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.