The Value of Known Ignorance

Thor Olavsrud muses on the value of known ignorance , citing baseball analyst Bill James:

Speaking at the NetSuite NYSE Disruption Summit at the New York Stock Exchange on Friday, James and Beane both expressed that in business, as in baseball, the key to making the most of the data you're collecting is to let go of preconceptions and start thinking of areas of ignorance as mines of opportunity.

"Ignorance is inexhaustible and a vast resource to all of us," says James, now senior advisor on Baseball Operations for the Boston Red Sox, a far cry from his early days writing about baseball stats while working as a night-shift security guard at Stokely-Van Camp's pork and beans cannery. "Whenever you find something that you do not know, that you could know, that's gold. That's an opportunity to turn lead into gold."

"It's taking bucketfuls out of an ocean," he adds. "Every field is shot through with things that people are convinced are true but just aren't true. Areas of growth are based on discovering those things you know that just aren't true."

The trick is to look into that sea of the unknown and understand what is quantifiable and what isn't.

-DD