Reading Reflection No. 2

For my second reading reflection I read "The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More" by Chris Anderson.

General theme or argument of the book? 

The general theme of this book was focusing on the long tail of the curve in regards to products and services in overall business industry. It emphasizes how the old rule of 80/20, where 80% percent of business comes from a 20% of a businesses consumers is not going to work for the future of businesses because we are at a time where there are so many niche markets that making a lot of products or a select few will be more successful and substaintable.  

How did the book connect with and enhance what you are learning in ENT 3003?

This book is connecting with and enhancing what Dr. Pryor is instilling us with in this course because it shows that we do not have to focus on one specific idea or industry to be successful, which Dr. Pryor is having us do by coming up with a business concept and going through the process. Again, by having multiple ideas, products or services in niche markets a company can be successful by reaching a few hundred thousand to a million people that has that specific interest in that item instead of making a product or service that has to appeal to the mass market in order to be successful. 

Design an exercise for this class, what would the exercise involve? 

If I were to make an exercise for this class based of this book it would involve having students research a long tailed company, such as Google, Ebay, Amazon, or KitchenAid, etc. to see how these companies have a variety of products available to everyone, while making the process of finding something easy. Then I would have them relate and reflect that research into the process of developing their business concepts to provide additional perspectives and experiences to continue building an entrepreneurial mindset.  

What was my biggest surprise or 'aha' moment when reading this book? Basically, what did you learn that differed most from your expectations? 

I had no idea what the long tail meant in the economic world and how it uses graphs about products and their sales to describe this term. So, once started reading the book and realizing how prominent this idea is in today's markets of sales is amazing. Also, given the fact that this book was written in 2006, Anderson's idea of how aggregators, such as Amazon can be a pure digital retailer and still have mainstream success was one of the biggest surprises to me because that is exactly what Amazon is doing for today's markets. Finally, how much insight Anderson provided for economic points is thought-provoking.