Freakonomics and the Real World

"Knowing what to measure and how to measure it makes a complicated world much less so."
-Freakonomics - Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner

Interviews for strategic planning reveal that many executives believe they lack
a) 'enough data' and/or
b) 'useful data'

Really?
This seems, to me, to just be an admission that they can't figure out what the data means.
Will more data help? Doubt it...
And what is 'useful data'? A proven answer?

Why don't more companies hire statisticians?
Probably the same reason why they don't hire philosophers and anthropologists.

"We kill what we fear, and we fear what we don't understand"

Airplane Reading

Flew back from Singapore yesterday.
Long flight, but we got an upgrade to business class, so that was nice.

On the flight, I read two books.

1) The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists - Interesting book.
About a month ago,I read this article in Metro (which, by the way, is now downloadable in pdf format) . Besides having a GREAT title (I love puns), it intrigued me with it's tale of desperate men using NLP to pick up girls.
Anyway, I saw "The Game" in a Singapore book store and picked it up for some light in-flight reading.
The 1st third is hilarious, and highly entertaining, as we watch socially inept geeks learn the art of seduction.
The rest of the book, however, loses momentum as it heads into the inevitable morality tale and love story.
Still, worth reading if you want a glimpse into a world you will hopefully never enter on your own.

2) Freakonomics - An economist takes on some decidedly non-academic questions, like 'why do drug dealers live with their moms?', and 'what's more dangerous - a pool or a gun?'
He then answers those questions with data, stories, and surprises.
Challenge your assumptions!