Dataclysm

A person’s “like” pattern even makes a decent proxy for intelligence—this model could reliably predict someone’s score on a standard (separately administered) IQ test, without the person answering a single direct question.

The fact that Paul McCartney and John Lennon practiced rock music for 10,000 hours and then became the Beatles does say something about the value of rehearsal and persistence, but that number itself means nothing. I myself have put in that kind of time playing guitar, as have many others whose music you’ll never hear. Whatever it was that allowed Lennon and McCartney to turn practice into genius, it’s unique to them. On the other hand, every number in this book has many hundreds, often many thousands, of people behind it, none of them famous. Here’s the kernel of it: the phrase “one in a million” is at the core of so many wonderful works of art. It means a person so special, so talented, so something that they’re practically unique, and that very rareness makes them significant. But in mathematics, and so with data, and so here in this book, the phrase means just the opposite: 1/1,000,000 is a rounding error.

This is the core concept of personal branding, and like Christianity + the printing press or pro football + television, the idea has found in social media the perfect technology to go global. I won’t rehash the ways sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram give you the power to project yourself to the world. But I will point out that not long ago, only big companies, with big budgets, could get their message heard and beloved by strangers halfway around the globe. Now I can, and so can you, and so can everyone. The hardest part is getting anyone to listen.

In 1997, Tom Peters, a motivational speaker and management consultant, published an article called “The Brand Called You” in Fast Company magazine, and the era of personal branding was born.

And that’s all assuming you can guess at what you’re supposed to do in the first place. Apparently, one of the strongest correlates to intelligence in the research was liking “curly fries.” Who could reverse-engineer that?