Outliers

I made the announcement at work, and a school counselor friend remarked that ‘we can’t effectively educate those who lie in the 2 and 3 sigma range.’  refering to students who lie outside the swollen middle of a bell curve.

It made me think of a story my brother told me about Pandora.com, which offers free streaming music to suit your tastes.  The founder was a frustrated musician, who realized that the music industry promoted a select few artists, who were very popular, while good music existed outside of that sweet spot on the pop chart, but nobody got to hear it.  He and his friends spent the next ten years analyzing songs and building a database (without pay), so that they could promote unknown artists, based on their musical similarities to more well known ones. 

I realized that these two stories are the about the same thing.  The folks in the middle of the bell curve are well served by the system, but in order for those on the edges to thrive, some extra faith and effort is required.  Time for me to reread Charlotte’s Web.