thank you india

Once again, I'm writing this blog post at night, but due to the fact that I don't have internet access in my hotel room, I'll have to post it tomorrow. That's not the point, however. Rather, the point is that I won a Luminary Award at the sales conference!! It's given to the top 3% of the people in my department, and it comes with a lovely, brightly colored orb and a cash bonus, so I'm pretty psyched. I'm guessing that I got it because they knew I was so disappointed that I didn't win bubonic plague in India--but this is a pretty good consolation prize. Several of my friends won them as well, particularly Jogi from the Hyderabad office, and so it was an exciting evening. And luckily, there was no koolaid in evidence, so apparently our apocalyptic mass suicide will have to wait until next year.

In other news, Malcolm Gladwell spoke at the conference today. He wrote 'The Tipping Point', which I used in my honors thesis, and he also wrote 'Blink', which I read this summer. Since I spent so much time perusing his work and referenced it quite a bit in my thesis, it was v. exciting to hear him speak. Most of his speech revolved around the difference between 'Cezannes' and 'Picassos'--or rather, experimental innovators and conceptual innovators. Cezanne's best works came when he was in his sixties, after years and years of painting, while Picasso peaked in his late twenties. Other genres have similar examples (Twain vs. Fitzgerald, Fleetwood Mac vs. Guns 'n' Roses, etc.), and Gladwell believes that the same comparisons and lessons can be drawn in corporations. Some corporations, like Apple or the Detroit Big Three, rely on brilliant concepts that appear in a flash and revolutionize the world (iPod, the SUV), while other corporations, like Dell or the Japanese car makers, spend decades iterating through variations until they find the recipe for success. Gladwell stressed the importance of finding balance between experimentation and conceptualization, which I personally found rather fascinating. It also made me wonder what kind of innovator I am, and whether I am going to peak in my twenties (perhaps tonight with the luminary award), or if I will slowly build up to greatness late in life. Only time will tell, but now it's time to go to bed!