Once again, I’m blogging about somebody else’s insight, and editorializing about the thoughts it made me have. This time, it’s about Malcolm Gladwell’s article in this week’s New Yorker. The piece, “How David Beats Goliath,” has the subtitle “When underdogs break the rules.” It has some currency on Twitter—I found it in a tweet from @merlyngordon, who retweeted it from @jhagel—and I’m glad I noticed it.

The leading examples Gladwell uses are from basketball, and why the full court press can be maddeningly effective against teams composed of taller, better skilled opponents; from warfare, and why guerrilla tactics are so effective against conventional military forces; and how, time and again, tactics that work are discarded as poor sportsmanship or ignored as anomalies. I won’t restate all the themes and concepts in the (fairly long) article; it’s worth a read when you have the time.

What I will do is say that the idea of asymmetric competition—hitting your adversary in weak areas or taking advantage of assumptions about the “right” way to do things—is just as valid in modern, social media-enabled CRM practices as anywhere else. It’s still early days for emerging CRM 2.0 approaches, so the Davids and Goliaths aren’t as clearly defined, but there’s still wisdom to be had.

Consider business in general: It’s hard to get enthusiasm (much less capital investment) for a new company that has as its goal the creation of a product or service that’s just like somebody else’s. Competing against an entrenched concern on its own terms is corporate suicide, more often than not. The opportunity is in finding that existing business’ weak points—what do they do poorly, what don’t they do at all—and filling the gap with your own offering. This is just as true if you differentiate yourself on how you deal with your customers.

A number of businesses have risen to prominence based on customer touch. Whether it’s innovative marketing, a sales process that really considers and answers a prospect’s needs, bend-over-backwards customer service, or proactive outreach of another kind, these companies steal the cheese from stiffer, more old-fashioned and inflexible ones. Anybody reading this can think of an example or two, even if it’s going all the way back to Marshall Fields and “The customer is always right.”

The irony is that the innovators become industry standards, and are in turn vulnerable to innovators if they don’t remain flexible.

The interface of social media with CRM is still relatively new; it’s something that is still subject to experimentation, and something that not everybody finds valuable at the moment. The trap is therefore not that underdogs compete with more powerful presences, but that a latecomer sees another company’s apparent success and blindly copies it. What works for one company might not work for another—and it certainly won’t be as impressive if one effort is an obvious me-too attempt.

If, for example, your competitor has an insanely popular blog, maybe you shouldn’t try to steal its traffic with your own; perhaps you should go to MySpace, where that competitor hasn’t expended any effort, and make it your own little domain. (This works best if your primary audience is middle-school kids, but maybe that’s just my preconceptions about MySpace showing through. Your mileage may vary.)

Whatever you try, come to it with a fresh eye, an outsider’s perspective. Make sure your marketing on Twitter, your Facebook customer peer group, or whatever you do, reflects the needs of your customers and your business—not somebody else’s bright idea. Play your own game.