Sunday, December 14, 2014

Too much information

In his prime, Alex Karras was one of the most feared defensive players in professional football.  He had an uncanny ability to find, and destroy the ball carrier.  He was a heat seeking missile.

He was once asked the secret of his success.  His answer surprised many people.

"I am almost blind without my glasses.  All I see are blobs and motion.  I am impossible to fake out with eye motion because I cannot see eyes.  I don't fall for head-fakes because I can barely see heads.  I see blobs and motion and patterns.  That is how I find the ball carrier."

Too much information or too much data?


It is easy to become overwhelmed with too much data.  It is easy to mistake "data" for "information".

The first few shots that connect with paper are both data and information.  After thirty (or so) shots, we continue to collect data but the incremental information becomes smaller and smaller.

Simple questions


  • Does your weekly grocery cart take a bigger percentage of your take-home pay?
  • Do you trust your neighbors?
  • Do you trust your leaders at work, in government, house-of-worship, your children's schools?
  • Do you have time to show your spouse that you love her/him?
  • Do you have time and freedom to make connections and build friendships with people at work and in the community?
  • Do you have time and resources to add one new skill a year to your portfolio?
  • If things are getting better, are you banking "karma"?
  • If things are stretching thinner, do you have a plan?
  • If you are investing, will you be happy with the outcome if nobody ever comes along and offers to buy it off your hands?
  • If you died tonight, will your soul be consumed by regrets or will you be able to say you ran a good race and fought a good fight?

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