Surely You Are Joking, Mr. CEO?
The Importance of Multidisciplinary Thinking To A Business
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Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating — Baron Carl Von Clausewitz
The world IS data. It is very obvious that the more relevant data a platform possesses, the more powerful it becomes at understanding the world.
For example, medicine has already moved to a crowdsourcing model of compiling the wisdom from specialists and doctors around the world. This is because it is the most efficient way of compiling the collective knowledge of the best doctors mankind has to offer. The benefits don’t have an upper limit. Better delivery of medicine, efficiency in conducting surgeries, remote medical procedures and cost effective delivery of healthcare are some of the benefits. New doctors will learn from global experts and will drastically shorten their learning curve on global medicine and practices. Ultimately, the end consumer i.e. the patiens can expect to live a healthier life and to live longer than before.
Hedge funds are crowdsourcing algorithms from data scientists around the world to create the ultimate algorithm that yields them the elusive alpha. Crowdsourcing is also a form of diversification so that a collectively sourced algorithm can provide higher returns while minimizing downside risk. In fact, the Winton group in London, United Kingdom gathers data from as far back in human history as it can. The premise of that approach is that the history of financial markets tends to rhyme if not repeat itself. It wants to leverage human history to improve its understanding of the future. Thirdly, think of Initial Coin Offerings (ICO’s), although in their infancy, as a way of crowdsourced venture capital.
By now, everyone understands that the best way to remove bias in decision making is to have as many people touching the proverbial elephant as possible in the hopes of finding the true nature of the beast. Of course, the beast in this case could be the future. This brings us to the question this article attempts to address: how important is multidisciplinary thinking to a business? In my humble opinion, it’s the…
