Malcolm Gladwell’s 2004 TED Talk explores the concept of how human variability informs horizontal segmentation resulting in ultimately happier customers.  In 18 minutes, without ever saying it, Gladwell explains elements of the long tail, the fallacy of scarcity, the customer is only always right in hindsight, and, as I said earlier today, that innovation is the rejection of best practices.

What I find fascinating is questioning how this approach is being captured on the web today.  Where is human variability embraced?  How do we measure customer satisfaction in a way that accounts for this clustering around persistent themes and elusive memes?  Are we wrongly empowering users with more intent-driven search tools when what they need are more discovery tools to define and refine tastes?  Is the safe-haven of certainty blinding us to the living power of embracing the very uncertainty we fear?

So many questions. Back to my nap.