STRATEGIC NEWS SERVICE®

 

 

18 Years Providing Weekly Foresight

 

The most accurate predictive letter in computing and telecommunications,
read by industry leaders worldwide.

 

 

 

In This Issue     Feature: The Right Idea Learning to See Learning to Think The Right Idea   Quotes of the Week   Upgrades   Microsoft's Restructuring China: Following Dumping with Retaliation Two IPOs: Twitter vs. Alibaba The End of Online Comments?   Takeout Window   The New Surface and Surface Pro 2 Pads   In Case You Missed It... Members Making News   Upcoming SNS Events & Media Links   In Other House News...   New Members' Welcome How to Subscribe May I Share This Newsletter? About SNS About the Publisher Where's Mark?

   "Mark has clearly defined a fundamental challenge to our economic system." SNS member William C. Harris, President and CEO, Science Foundation Arizona; on "SNS: The Big Shift."

 

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Save the date! Join us for the 9th annual SNS Predictions Dinner in NY, at the historic Waldorf Astoria Hotel, Thursday, Dec. 5, for an intimate cocktail reception, outstanding meal, Centerpiece Conversation, Mark's top predictions for the coming year, and a rousing follow-up Q&A. 6:30 till 10:00, details to follow, with registration now open, at:

 

www.stratnews.com/events/predictions-dinner

 

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Would you like to meet award-winning documentary filmmakers, see and potentially  influence films-in-progress, get preferred Sundance access and discounted Carmel Art & Film Festival tickets, and be part of the new wave of telling the story of technology improving society through film? This new exclusive 1-year membership, offered at the introductory low price of $100, is available for a limited time only, and only to SNS members. To sign up, go to:

 

www.stratnews.com/firefilms/signup

 

Email Sharon Anderson Morris with questions and to learn details about full benefits, at sam@stratnews.com.

 

 

Reading Selection:

 

Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think,by Viktor Mayer-Schonberger and Kenneth Cukier (Eamon Dolan/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, March 2013).

 

For members interested in the details behind this much-discussed analytical space between massive amounts of user data and on-demand supercomputing.

 

 

 

 

The Right Idea

 

This week's issue is the direct result of my recent speech to the incoming class of Thunderbird School of Global Management, virtually all of whom then signed up as SNS members. We welcome them to our community and look forward to their great works as they go out into the world.

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Almost every student today is taught that the basis of discovery, the primary tool for conducting science itself, is what's often called the "Scientific Method."

 

Merriam-Webster.com describes it this way:

 

"[P]rinciples and procedures for the systematic pursuit of knowledge involving the recognition and formulation of a problem, the collection of data through observation and experiment, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses"

 

and, from Dictionary.com:

 

"[A] method of research in which a problem is identified, relevant data are gathered, a hypothesis is formulated from these data, and the hypothesis is empirically tested. (Origin: 185055)"

 

But it's even simpler than that. Take an idea called a "hypothesis" and test it by experiment; evaluate the results, modify your original idea accordingly, and repeat.

 

There is only one problem with this 150-year-old program: it doesn't tell us how to get the right idea in the first place. And for those who think this is not a big issue, let me suggest that it is the most important part of science.