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Hide or Seek? Finding solutions to problems
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The BABY had an interesting experience lately...a young man came to me with a technical problem and I suggested that perhaps it could be solved by a friend of mine. The young man declined my offer because he was afraid the other person would steal his idea in some way. I see this paranoia and incredible resistance to expose a problem to a group of problem solvers as being a decidedly poor way to embrace entrepreneurship.
To quote James Surowiecki, “There is wisdom in crowds”….now admittedly, he was referring to large groups and how they rationalize answers effectively, but the wisdom of small crowds especially small, highly-skilled crowds is critical to problem solving. It may not take a village, but it sure as hell takes a small tribe.
And, sure enough, along comes a paper from some Harvard researchers that proves the value of openness and free information sharing amongst scientists. (If you are a software guy, think “open source”). What the authors prove is that the disclosure of a problem to a large group of outside solvers is an effective means of solving hard problems.
What I see in the young people who come into my office is a distinct lack of both trust and understanding of how information gets created and then monetized. Think of Wikipedia……an entire business created by its own outside users. This concept of user generated content is well known today in the Web 2.0 milieu.
But what the paper suggests is that solving technical problems works equally as well as creating when you have a large group of domain experts. The skill set that I am promoting here is an easy one to grasp – openness and collaboration --- but it seems to not be an easy one to truly embrace and execute. Especially in the scientific community, there is a very strong bias to not share data or ideas…and yet big scientific solutions build on the network of previous information.
No man is an island….and no one person can solve the whole problem. What the paper suggests is that if you broadcast the problem to a large group of scientific solvers in other countries and other disciplines, the data shows that 62% of the time a solution was achieved within one standard deviation.
And here is the crusher --- the further the problem was from the solver’s field of expertise, the more likely they were to solve it.
You wouldn’t think that, would you? In fact, if you used your intuition alone –ie. “How could someone not closely associated with the field, solve the problem?”-- you would be wrong.
And so, we come back to the entrepreneurial principle of not always listening to your gut when the facts tell you to listen to your head. Now I am not going to discount the value of proprietary information, but at the same time, the skill the entrepreneur needs to develop is how to build a team where there is collaboration from a wide array of solvers, and where only a few of them are formally employees of the firm...where people choose to solve, but not because they are being paid in a traditional way.
The most counter-intuitive finding in the study is that the greater the distance between the solver’s field of expertise and the problem, the more likely they were to successfully solve it. What this shows is the enormous value of a fresh set of eyes….of outsider eyes…..from distant fields who see problems with fresh eyes and apply novel solutions that are well known to them in their field but are not usually associated with the problem field.
Now, I don’t want to get too technical with you folks --- but this study scientifically proves what the BABY has always suspected…namely that really smart people can often solve problems that are not directly related to their core expertise or experience.
What it says is that sometimes you can take your smarts from a car repair shop and apply it to a delivery problem at a fast food restaurant…and it explains why non technical people can sometimes see more clearly what has stumped the scientist.
The idea of collaboration is an old one…..but the idea of offering a problem to a group of solvers – in particular, solvers who are not experts in the direct field of the problem is a unique one and, so far, the results seem to indicate that these solvers add great value.
That brings us to Baby Billionaire Rule # 39:
When you are stumped, don’t be afraid to ask your Uncle Harry – even though he wouldn’t know an LED chip from a carburetor, he might still be able to change a spark plug that might just solve your problem.
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The "Perfect" Plan
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What is the most common mistake in preparing a business plan? We know that angel investors and venture capitalists are becoming increasingly diligent in reviewing business opportunities. We also know that money is "out there." What does it take to get a piece of the pie?
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