90–9–1

When we were working on building a community of early adopters for TechChamp, I came across an extremely fascinating concept, the 90–9–1 rule. In a nutshell (also on the summary of the article), only 1% of users account for almost all of the action in online communities, 90% never contribute while 9% of the users contribute a little

I was wondering if the 90–9–1 rule exists in the real world too? So 1% of the people account for the greatest creations out there, 90% are plain consumers and 9% create something once in a while only.

The 1% and the 90% are pretty easy to understand I think. But, think of an actor who everyone was talking about for that one role and then no one knows what happened to them. Or that pop star who disappeared after that No.1 single. The entrepreneur who sold his company for a lot of millions and press, just the one time. Incredible achievements, once in a while, ONLY.