Comparisons are fun and at times informative. Are you a reader or a listener? Do you enjoy the practice or the novelty? Do you believe intelligence is fixed or elastic? Are you a cow or a pig? Maybe you aren't familiar with the last one. I grew up on a hobby farm in Kentucky, and we had cows and pigs. I don't think we always did things the right way, and we used an electric fence at times. If you aren't familiar with an electric fence, it's a simple wire connected to an alternating current. If the animal touches the wire, they'll get a mild shock. I've touched it several times myself and have survived. What I found interesting and informative was the difference between the cows and the pigs.

Pig Test

It was my job to set up the fence and keep it going. I was about 10 years old, and often I might forget to do it correctly. The cows would test the wire the first day or so and then accept the boundary and never try again. Pigs on the other hand tested the wire all the time. Pigs have a very sensitive nose, and they would simply get close to the wire and feel the pulse of electricity without any shock.  If the fence was off, they'd walk right through.

I try to be a pig at work. I don't want to test assumptions so hard as to get shocked, but I never want to accept a boundary and become a cow either. Pig testing is very important. We work very hard to create models and use analytics to make better decisions. As cows we accept the answers given and become surprised when the grass is all gone. As pigs we use the answers and always test to make sure our models are still a close fit to the real world. So often I hear the client will never listen to that message, and as cows we believe we know our clients so well. As pigs, we might mention the message again and find out for ourselves if the fence is still hot.

Toilet Paper

I was fortunate to stumble into being a Cryptologic Linguist for the Air Force, and I would listen to our former bad guys, the East Germans. I had a lot of fancy tools to be snoopy but what proved most useful was the toilet paper. Like any army, the Germans would guard important information closely and attempt to make it difficult to find. Toilet Paper on the other hand was unimportant. Before any troop movement, a large order of toilet paper would show up. I always knew something was about to happen.

In business we have a lot of fancy tools to explain what's going to happen. I try to remember to look for the toilet paper. One of my favorite IBM Fellows, Brenda Dietrich, talks about data exhaust. The trail left by data transactions that can be as informative as the data itself. The data exhaust left behind by our buying, when we buy; how often we buy; the volume of our purchase content; the mentions on social media; etc... is all toilet paper that is available to interpretation. Much less legal issues about privacy when we search for the toilet paper as compared to the actual transactions themselves.

Ball of String

I've been reading William James' work on habits. He is big on the power of inertia. We continue doing what we've done because it's what we feel comfortable doing. The neural pathways are in place. Takes force to overcome inertia. He has a great metaphor about the early work of changing a habit. You must be very careful to maintain a change in habit. Each day is like winding a small piece of new string around a ball, and if you miss once, it's like dropping the ball and watching it roll across the floor.