In generale Brooks non mi fa impazzire, ma
in periodo storico ossessionato da dati e misure,
un memento come il suo non fa certo male...
jc
February 18, 2013
What Data Can’t Do
By DAVID BROOKS
Not long ago, I was at a dinner with the chief executive of a large
bank. He had just had to decide whether to pull out of Italy, given
the weak economy and the prospect of a future euro crisis.
The C.E.O. had his economists project out a series of downside
scenarios and calculate what they would mean for his company. But,
in the end, he made his decision on the basis of values.
His bank had been in Italy for decades. He didn’t want Italians to
think of the company as a fair-weather friend. He didn’t want people
inside the company thinking they would cut and run when times got
hard. He decided to stay in Italy and ride out any potential crisis,
even with the short-term costs.
He wasn’t oblivious to data in making this decision, but ultimately,
he was guided by a different way of thinking. And, of course, he was
right to be. Commerce depends on trust. Trust is reciprocity coated
by emotion. People and companies that behave well in tough times
earn affection and self-respect that is extremely valuable, even if
it is hard to capture in data.
I tell this story because it hints at the strengths and limitations
of data analysis. The big novelty of this historic moment is that
our lives are now mediated through data-collecting computers. In
this world, data can be used to make sense of mind-bogglingly
complex situations. Data can help compensate for our overconfidence
in our own intuitions and can help reduce the extent to which our
desires distort our perceptions.
[...]
Continua qui:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/opinion/brooks-what-data-cant-do.html