By Jim McCarthy Aug 5, 2009 0 comments

My Problem with Chris Anderson’s Work

I have a love/hate thing with Chris Anderson’s work.  (Not the TED Chris Anderson…I have a love/love thing with his work.)

And perhaps “hate” is too strong a word for the downside of how I feel about Anderson’s stuff, but my delight at his fresh and provocative ideas has always had a subtle accompaniment running in the back of my head that tells me something is amiss.

Part of it, for sure, is the fact that Chris has now taken two excellent magazine articles and turned them into two mediocre books.  “The Long Tail” and “Free” were both dynamite magazine articles, but the fact is, you really can’t make much money for a magazine article.  So Anderson padded them out to be just long enough to be a legitimate book and sold piles and piles of them.

On the one hand, good for him.  On the other hand, you really get everything you could possibly ever need to know on the topic from the articles.  This practice isn’t sleazy or dishonest, but at the same time, it doesn’t feel like Anderson is looking out for his readers’ best interests either.

That, I can ignore though.  You have to earn a living, and if it works and it’s ethical, go for it if you like it.  I’m also not too bothered by the wikipedia controversy.  (It would help his cause in this area if he wouldn’t answer the criticism in such a byzantine and unconvincing way, as I saw him do in Los Angeles at the ALOUD Business Forum.  He seems mad and annoyed to have to explain why material that he didn’t write appeared under his name, which is the opposite of how he should be acting, which is contrite.)

And it’s not that I think he’s wrong about his ideas, exactly.  Both the Long Tail and Free concepts are insightful and important, and even better, they’re clever, clear ways of explaining things that are built into the current laws of physics in the business world.

Here’s my problem: it’s not that Anderson is wrong; it’s that he’s not as right as he thinks he is, and the difference is huge.  It’s like the difference between saying “Sometimes there are sharks on this beach” and “Lookout! There’s a shark right next to you in the water!”

In one case, you nod with general interest.  In the other, you swim like hell for your life.

I’ll talk about the Long Tail and specifically why what he’s saying is so dangerous to people trying to make actual business decisions in another upcoming post, so stay tuned.

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