Data, insights and information
'Data' is becoming a popular trend. Everyone is talking about it. Big Data. Data science. Data-driven marketing. Data based decision making. Over the years, both the amount of data and the access to it, have gone up significantly. That doesn't necessarily mean we are more informed. Plain data, especially when there is lots of it, is all noise and hard to comprehend. It needs to be converted into meaningful insights, which requires one to have...
Integration is a powerful concept
Integration is a powerful concept. Not just in mathematics but in business, culture, society and life in general. Companies that are able to build products that seamlessly integrate with each other, end up creating highly valuable ecosystems. Apple, Google, and Alibaba do a great job at this. People with the ability to integrate into a new culture, find it easy to thrive in a new organisation (or a new country). How well our work, family,...
The ‘average’ reality
If the average ratings of the two products are 4.5 and 3.9, is the product with a 4.5 rating a better product for you? If the average household income of a country went up in a specific year, does that mean every citizen made more money that year? If the average mathematics score of a class is 70, did every student get the same score? Averages summarise a large amount of data in a single point. But they often hide important information. The...
Simplicity
As a 5-year-old, I said to my father that we should buy a car. He questioned back, "Where will we get the money from?" To which I replied with full confidence, "We'll just sell our house and live in the car. Mummy, you and I. Simple!" 18 years later, a professional psychometric consultant asked me to explain thermodynamics in a simple language that a 5-year-old could understand. I struggled! Simplicity is of two types. The first type arises out...
Data translators
Businesses around the globe are investing heavily in analytics, AI and big data initiatives. The search for talent, however, has been focused primarily on data scientists. There is no doubt that data scientists are critical to building models and extracting insights out of vast amounts of data. However, a role that is equally if not more important is that of a "data translator." A role that interprets data science into actions that drive...
Let’s put words in your mouth
In 2018, Google launched a new feature 'Smart Compose' which uses machine learning to make suggestions for completing your sentences when drafting an email. LinkedIn introduced a feature 'smart replies' (so did Google) in 2017, which provides reply recommendations for your conversations. The technology companies attribute 'saving time' as the sole reason behind the introduction of such features. The limitation in composing messages is not a...
Do stats lie?
The weather forecast for the weekend said there is a 90% chance of rain. But it didn't rain at all. Does that mean the forecast was wrong? Not really. All forecast meant was that the odds of it raining are 9 in 10. Statistics can easily mislead. In the above example, it's both easy and common to overlook that there were odds of 1 in 10 (a 10% probability) that it may not rain at all. The government announced the current unemployment in...
Finite and infinite loops
Loops are common in the world of programming. They are commands that run until a certain set of conditions are met. Do a specific action while a given condition is true. Or, for a given set of conditions, take specified actions. Finite loops end after a number of iterations while infinite loops are endless. Life is full of finite and infinite loops. For age between 6 and 18 months, learn walking. For age between 3 and 18 years, attend...
Creativity competes with productivity
Creativity competes with productivity for attention. All the time. Productivity is easy to measure against a predefined set of KPIs. Number of parcels dispatched. Number of sales calls taken. Amount of cost savings achieved. Gross margin per employee. Creativity on the other hand is hard to quantify. You can't measure the number of ideas generated during the day. Productivity requires you take a systematic approach. To follow a process and keep...
Bigger isn’t always better
Double digit growth. Higher revenue. More users. More followers on social media. Bigger brand. More employees. Larger professional network. We live in a 'bigger is better' world. However 'being big' isn't always the most viable option. Growth generally takes the focus away, reduces agility and makes the entire experience less meaningful. The bigger the organisations get, higher is the level of bureaucracy and lower is it's ability to change....