"The nexus of this investigation started with a relatively simple question about modern products. We wondered why a relative few garner enormous success while the vast majority of others are relegated to the growing heap of product failures. Why do a few rise out of the mass of consumer culture to become such things as best-sellers, blockbuster films, top of the chart songs and top selling toys?"

"When a successful product appears, the marketing influenced tendency is to isolate it and show how it has ‘carved a niche’ for itself in the marketplace by being unique. The modern marketing mantra is centered around the word "differentiation" or separating one's product from other products. Traditional marketing thought is that products which are unique are the successful ones, the ones that break away from the pack."

"But the real truth of successful groundbreaking ‘hits’ and ‘blockbusters’ might be in connection rather than separation. In this sense, our most successful products very well may be those that possess the greatest connection to the overall macro-patterns of culture, the ones that don’t fight these patterns but rather flow with them. As someone once said, "It is useless to tell a river to stop running; the best thing is to learn how to swim in the direction it is flowing."