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•赫芬顿(Arianna Huffington)时，一名年轻的助理正站在她身边举着一只小型手电，使自己的老板在光线很暗的房间中仍然可以作笔记。赫芬顿正在修改她将在约翰内斯堡的“发现领导力峰会”(Discovery Leadership Summit)上发表的演讲稿，主要内容是关于睡眠（有益）和智能手机（不那么有益）。睡眠是她开拓的新商业领域。这相对于打造传媒公司《赫芬顿邮报》(The Huffington Post)而言似乎是一个很大的跳跃，但这当中有模式可循。赫芬顿的卓越才能在于把握时代特征，并将其货币化。