TOPSY-TURVY AND THE ONE PERCENT RULE
Dear Friends:
Some swell reader forwarded me a ranking page about myself (the eponymous "Douglas Castle") from a search engine tool called TOPSY. It gave some kind of ranking (based upon tweets, or somesuch) for numerous of my articles and brief posts (as opposed to posts about briefs, which I leave for others to blog about). The link to this particular page is http://topsy.com/s?q=douglas+castle. The one particular post that caught my attention was one which I was absolutely driven to write when I was working on a project involving the political advancement process in the United States. I found it disturbing that there was such a disparity between the career trajectories of creators and that of critics. My feeling was, and still is, that we promote the prosecutors, the inquisitors, the hangmen and the destroyers while we like to poke fun at the "crazy" and "eccentric" creators -- until we get bored of that -- at which point we imprison them, burn them, give them a hemlock cocktail or crucify them.
In our society, we are frightened of having our eyes and minds opened; invariably, in the interests of hiding from the blinding light of knowledge, we either ignore the messenger, or kill him (or her) if he (or she) won't fall comfortably into line. It's a fascinating paradox...we love to pay creators and visionaries high praise, but we insist upon doing it posthumously, when it won't cost us any money to throw a party in their honor. And in an ironic consistency, we promote the destroyers in this lifetime. We offer them promotions, pay and power.
Hence the notion of THE ONE PERCENT (1%) RULE...where ninety-nine percent of our species destroys (or permits to be destroyed) that which the other one percent create.
Here's a salvaged excerpted portion of the page from TOPSY (thanks, Jim), after which I have reprinted my article:
Here's a salvaged excerpted portion of the page from TOPSY (thanks, Jim), after which I have reprinted my article:
The ONE PERCENT Rule. Who are you? Take sides. Be politically incorrect. Join me #TNNW ! -_-- BY AUTHOR DOUGLAS CASTLE, OF THE NATIONAL NETWORKER
“Christine West. Douglas Castle. Read them. Join us. http://twitlik.com/IN The National Networker. ” 15 days ago by tnnw_buzzworks
Topsy Most tweeted links for douglas castle Retweet
Topsy Most tweeted links for douglas castle Retweet
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A REPRINT OF THE ARTICLE FOLLOWS:
The 1% Rule
Note: This brief article was originally published in the author's own blog at DOUGLAS CASTLE, http://aboutdouglascastle.blogspot.com on 25 June 2009.
Dear Friends:
People (most of them self-professed pundits) are always citing the anecdotal wisdom of the "80 -20 Rule," which refers to the typical business situation where a mere 20% of your customers provide you with 80% of your business volume. It follows that a prudent business person should allocate 80% of his or her time on that critical 20%. Walking ahead just one more step, it would seem to me that it might truly be clever to focus more effort on segregating the 20% from the 80%, downsizing (I apologize for the dismal term) the 80% and building the 20% -- the ultimate result, if Murphy's Law and the Heisenberg Principle do not tamper with us too much, would be that the 20% would become our new 100%. Operating at optimal efficiency (which requires dispensing with the unfruitful investment of time in the 80%), we would then spend 100% of our time on the 100% of our customers who truly matter.
The inference in the 80-20 Rule is that the minority produces the majority of our wealth, and that they are of greater significance to us.
There is also a "Two Percent Rule," which refers to the belief that approximately 2% of the world's population (a very small, very powerful group, apparently) controls 98% of its wealth. The implications are obvious...as are the results.
Without making any value judgment, and just making an observation, I believe that both of the above rules are basically sound, albeit somewhat imprecise statistically.
But those rules are not the drivers in the limo of my current life: No, I would have to say that the Rule that affects me the most is the "1% Rule" [which will be referred to as "THE ONE PERCENT RULE" by both my detractors and by my twelfth-grade Creative Writing Teacher immediately after the release of this article].
My friend and business partner, Adam J. Kovitz, and I were discussing many wonderful upgrades to THE NATIONAL NETWORKER, and my role in mapping out and orchestrating many of these substantial changes. Adam's compliment to me was that I was a "One Percenter." He had used this expression on numerous occasions. I now understand it well enough to give it a definition. Following is the Rule, which I attribute jointly to Adam and myself...
THE ONE PERCENT RULE: Approximately One Percent of all Human Beings create and construct, while the remaining Ninety Nine Percent criticize and destroy. In sum, it is so much easier to be a critic and a complainer than it is to be a problem-solver, that most among us are virtually programmed (by our propensity toward inertia and indolence) to be critics and complainers, while only a few among us defy our baser instincts and actually create, build and problem-solve. To make matters worse, the special 1% is generally acknowledged and praised posthumously, i.e., following a crucifixion, burning at the stake, suicide, and the like. To be a One Percenter may be a thankless job, but it is necessary to every step that Humankind advances. This tenacious 1% fights against Humankind's collective drive toward either stagnation or self-annihilation. And we spend so much of our time and resources trying to discourage or eliminate this pivotal component.
Are you a One Percenter? Take the matter up with your own conscience. The sooner, the better. Time is fleeting.
Faithfully,
Douglas Castle
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