When I first spot Arianna Huffington, a young aide is standing beside her holding a pen flashlight so that the boss can make notes in a darkened room. Huffington is fine-tuning her speech for the Discovery Leadership Summit in Johannesburg, about sleep (good) and smartphones (not so good). Sleep is her new business. It seems quite a leap from building the Huffington Post media company, and yet there’s a pattern here. Huffington’s gift is for spotting the zeitgeist, then monetising it.
我第一眼看到阿里安娜•赫芬頓(Arianna Huffington)時，一名年輕的助理正站在她身邊舉著一隻小型手電筒，使自己的老闆在光線很暗的房間中仍然可以作筆記。赫芬頓正在修改她將在約翰尼斯堡的「發現領導力峯會」(Discovery Leadership Summit)上發表的演講稿，主要內容是關於睡眠（有益）和智慧型手機（不那麼有益）。睡眠是她開拓的新商業領域。這相對於打造傳媒公司《赫芬頓郵報》(The Huffington Post)而言似乎是一個很大的跳躍，但這當中有模式可循。赫芬頓的卓越才能在於把握時代特徵，並將其貨幣化。