On Feb 18, 2008 1:41 PM, Gautam Mukunda <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Empiricism requires data. If you're not as good at it as he is (no shame > - I'm not either) I would think reading and debating with him would be a > great opportunity to _get better at it_. If he challenges your opinions > using data it might be worthwhile once in a while to consider whether your > opinions should change, instead of believing that he has bad motives. What > you call changing topics is usually, for example, use of an enormously > valuable technique - drawing out the logical implications of stated beliefs > into a different domain and seeing if they still make sense. If they don't, > they probably don't make sense in the first domain _either_. How do you try > to persuade people to change their minds? And in particular, how do you do > it > without using data?
In my work, which like Dan's, involves analysis of billions of bits of data, I constantly am in mind of the famous Mark Twain line, "If I had more time, I'd have written you a shorter letter." I suspect that the three of us have produced reports for very busy people who would not be happy if we drowned them in "data smog." I used to do a fair bit of consulting for top management technology and media companies. Any report I wrote for the guys at the very top had to be no longer than a half page. My newsletter was $500 a year for 12 pages once a month; more and I would have had unhappy subscribers. When I've spoken at conferences, my experience is that the more senior the attendees, the less time anybody gets to talk. I've also never forgotten something from Bill Dunn, founder of Dow Jones News Retrieval, the first successful on-line investment data source. He said (at our UCLA Roundtable in Multimedia) that DJNR succeeded as others failed because he realized that when people have access to lots of data, points of view becomes more valuable. His competitors made more data available and lost. Indeed, I am put off by lengthy arguments unless there's some extremely compelling reason for them. When I offer then, they are usually the result of not taking the time to choose the strongest arguments and summarize. At worst, they are control techniques to dominate the discussion. I've been guilty of the spectrum of reasons. Brevity really is a virtue, wouldn't you agree? In fact, I suspect that one of Wal-Mart's great efficiencies is the brevity of its data. The company is celebrated for its data warehousing; I'm certain (because that's a big part of what I do) that their success in that realm implies that somebody in the company is very good at boiling all of the operations data into something like a half-page. I am glad to see you posting. Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
