Thoughts from reading In Search of Unicorns

I've written a lot lately about things like healthcare, finance, technology... I've been reading IN Search of Unicorns since the second week of February.

With the help of the subdivisions mentioned, I have browsed some materials, news and documents, input them twice and then dabbled with thoughts to output my own opinions, which is a lot of charging in the process.

Reviews of the book on Douban are limited, and most of them have three stars.

But I think it's worth five stars.

There are two reasons:

1. Get rid of the Rosenthal effect

The Rosenthal Effect was originally an American psychologist's "future trends test" of a primary school.

Give teachers and principals a list of promising students in grades 1 through 6 in advance. It's a random name, but they tell the teacher it's a test result, and it's confidential.

When the students were tested again eight months later, a miracle occurred. Those on the list not only improved their grades, but also their personality and interpersonal performance.

With "authoritative lies" to imply teachers, so as to mobilize teachers to the list of students some expectation psychology, said is this kind of psychological effect.

The same psychological effect applies to the book in Search of Unicorns.

Because this book is produced by Tencent's research institute, but also Ma Huateng wrote the preface. Reading the introduction of books, it is easy to give people the illusion: after reading this book should be able to master some money skills.

Pattern Tucson broken.

The words "Ma Huateng" and "Tencent" easily give people the illusion of authority. In addition to the marketing copy, it is easy to mobilize consumer expectations.

Note that I said consumers, not readers.

In the era of big data, the social role of consumers often bears more weight than other roles. Recognizing this helps us understand that people's consumption sometimes pays for bubbles in expectations.

In other words, many people's original intention is to "read Lin Huiyin a day" in the expectation, or at least master the secret of becoming a second Lin Huiyin.

Therefore, these people value the book in terms of "whether there is any financial intelligence to improve themselves" or "whether there is any information to steal that is profitable".

This kind of property has a rather unpleasant definition called speculation.

Because many people are not willing to take a long period of time to study a professional field like finance in depth. Sometimes, the shortcut to go more accustomed to, until there is no way out.

But why does this book allow me to consciously get rid of the Rosenthal effect? Because when I found that the reasons I was so happy to give high marks were slightly different from other raters, I kept thinking about why

It turned out over time that it wasn't that I was displaying a sense of superiority to be "different," it was that I had a low threshold for value.

In this era, information storm is ceaseless, but people in the storm often become information islands.

Everyone is more inclined to pay attention to information related to their own interests. For me, entertainment is probably closer than health care, finance, and technology.

At the very least, except for the period when it was necessary to study translation, I probably didn't think about how much central government documents had to do with my life.

However, in my eyes, "In Search of Unicorns" talks about the current situation of sharing economy in various fields from the perspective of capital or God. It has explained how the central documents provide favorable support for the social operation, and aroused my interest in finding more relevant documents and domain knowledge.

Even that made me think, "Gee, this is money well spent."

Ma Huateng three words did not bring me too much financial expectations, but it became the support of data authority, that is all.

2. Rethink the value of books

In Search of Unicorns is a 2017 book that is now two years old. Given the current speed of information update and the development of segmented areas, many industries have been reshuffled, and the top echelon of giants has a new pattern, the things in this book have been a lot of outdated.

So some netizens say it is "master but not master, to seize the opportunity".

Some netizens say it is a simple list of the popular type of a mediocre book.

And I've really thought about what the pain point is in the asymmetry of the value of a book to different people, or just this book.

Perhaps the best way to think about this is from the perspective of consumers and readers.

If it is regarded as a book with business value, then for consumers, it is often the young online users with high information sensitivity who want to explore the password of entrepreneurial trend.

However, the travel, accommodation, second-hand transaction, finance, logistics, service, education and medical care mentioned in this book are not fresh for people with high information sensitivity.

For many traditional merchants in the offline industry, they believe that real knowledge comes from practice, rather than general opinions that popularise contemporary social and economic dynamics. Even if they can provide new ideas, the road to success of the giant is not universal, so they are disdained to read it.

If it is regarded as a book with ideological value, then for readers, some readers who passively absorb the science content are simply persuaded by the logic of the book, and there is no way to stimulate active brainstorming to a large extent.

Part of the emotional readers run away, need not say more, for data and case support books can not catch a cold, it is better to read Wang Xiaobo comfortable.

While the other part of readers with developed critical thinking need classic works with precipitating value that can cross dimensions in limited time and space. This kind of book that can only stop at a certain time node is too lacking of weighty sense.

I think that's why this book doesn't have a high star rating. It just happens to be on the resonating lines of various sections of the reader's individual circle, that's all.

However, I still see a very valuable point from this book: no matter in the past, present and future, in the development trend of the era of big data, we must acquire a kind of ability -- "digital learning".

No matter how turbulent the world is, no matter how dead the capital world is, no matter how much intelligent AI can eliminate the traditional work, the sharing economy has already seen the dragon in the field, only learn to actively expand their own information base, learn to use digital tools, learn to life-long thinking and creation, can slow down their own high rate of depreciation.

Unicorns are only the inevitable economic product of the sharing of living materials. Their essence is to remind people of the looming future. It is up to individuals to choose the ones who go along with the trend, or the ones who go against the trend.

So, the book's five stars go like this:

One is for the popularization analysis of business information, one is for the reverse thinking of marketing strategy, one is for the extension of my interest in content, one is for the practical apps in many fields of AMWAY, and the last one is for all the people who are looking for "change".