Long Tails
Indeed the cyberspace has allowed many online businesses to achieve scale economies by fulfilling so-called long tails of product offerings. Once the constraint of physical space is eliminated, consumers can truly enjoy the benefits of abundance - not so much abundance in volume as in choice.
Perhaps other ways to describe long tails are infinite small delights or trivial pursuits. No matter how unpopular our tastes in certain products are - particularly in music, books and movies - chances are that supplies could be readily sourced online.
The long tail phenomenon is truly amazing in that it is nothing short of an impact of revolution - that it significantly expands our vision beyond the so-called mainstream offerings and popular hits - although evolution may be more like it when we come to think of how those online companies manage to reach such scale to reap from such revolutionary impact. They certainly don't achieve it overnight.
I cannot help but wonder whether any long tail of corporate solutions or even social solutions could be found for addressing business problems as well as societal problems. Intuitively, while needs could be as diverse - or generic - as problems, if long tails of products could be offered to satisfy seemingly unlimited forms of need, why not for solving problems.
The difficulties, of course, lie in both the complexity of problems and the form of solutions. Solving a problem could be a far more sophisticated process than simply satisfying a need by way of consuming a product. Buying a book or software or reading off-the-shelf problem-solving guides could hardly mean delivering a solution to a real-life problem.
But searching relevant information and forming perspectives could form part of the solution, as does the process of sharing - particularly sharing of best practices in well-organized forums. In our contemporary age of radical changes - where normalcy is increasingly harder to define and depend upon - in all walks of human endeavors, perhaps we need good will and good faith in constructing dialogues more than anything else in solving problems.
We also need creativity, as well as innovative ways of stimulating creative ideas and putting them together for good uses. That's why we need long tails of business and social - if not political and economic - solutions.
Perhaps those are practically what the educated and enlightened mind has got to offer.
Perhaps other ways to describe long tails are infinite small delights or trivial pursuits. No matter how unpopular our tastes in certain products are - particularly in music, books and movies - chances are that supplies could be readily sourced online.
The long tail phenomenon is truly amazing in that it is nothing short of an impact of revolution - that it significantly expands our vision beyond the so-called mainstream offerings and popular hits - although evolution may be more like it when we come to think of how those online companies manage to reach such scale to reap from such revolutionary impact. They certainly don't achieve it overnight.
I cannot help but wonder whether any long tail of corporate solutions or even social solutions could be found for addressing business problems as well as societal problems. Intuitively, while needs could be as diverse - or generic - as problems, if long tails of products could be offered to satisfy seemingly unlimited forms of need, why not for solving problems.
The difficulties, of course, lie in both the complexity of problems and the form of solutions. Solving a problem could be a far more sophisticated process than simply satisfying a need by way of consuming a product. Buying a book or software or reading off-the-shelf problem-solving guides could hardly mean delivering a solution to a real-life problem.
But searching relevant information and forming perspectives could form part of the solution, as does the process of sharing - particularly sharing of best practices in well-organized forums. In our contemporary age of radical changes - where normalcy is increasingly harder to define and depend upon - in all walks of human endeavors, perhaps we need good will and good faith in constructing dialogues more than anything else in solving problems.
We also need creativity, as well as innovative ways of stimulating creative ideas and putting them together for good uses. That's why we need long tails of business and social - if not political and economic - solutions.
Perhaps those are practically what the educated and enlightened mind has got to offer.
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