#86 Imagine the possibilities

Most people these days live in three worlds: The real one, outside the door; The virtual one, where you can engage in social networks with (as far as I can tell) real people; And The imaginary, where you and (if applicable) your imaginary friends reside.

Imagination is necessary to improve the real world we live in because our imagination can reflect a better, more desirable situation that we want. Expectations of future occurrences are shaped by our interpretation of the real world by our imagination. However, the world we live in moves so fast and is so voluminous from an information angle that we have little time to absorb, reflect and imagine productively.

We are more and more faced with split second decisions, quick one-sided interpretations, and rewarded by swift action without time for reflection. After all, thinking on your feet and being decisive are just some of the alpha male characteristics that are deemed critical in leadership and execution. Yes, as a surgeon, trader or soldier, these gut feeling reactions are critical to survival; it's what makes us human and how we flourish or fail. There is also something heroic and charismatic about reacting to gut feeling and making split second reactions in the heat of battle.

It's true that when a bus is about to hit you, you make an instant reaction to jump out of the way with a shot of adrenaline giving you superhuman strength. In the end it feels like a rewarding experience because of the raging chemicals inside your body. I guess that is what attracts people to extreme sports and, well, extreme banking and investment management. It now has been proven that testorone plays an important role in risk taking and self confidence. Seems obvious.

My point is that with more reflection and imagination we can avoid getting in the way of a driving bus or not seeing the sheer cliff downwards in the stock market. Avoid the herd, and think for your self.

It is easier said than done. But for experiment's sake, if X is claimed, could the opposite be true, what would have to occur for X not to happen? In any case it reminds me of being in university when the professor challenged us to think and question critically the many maxims we take for granted. By thinking critically, we understood the nature of the phenomenon, rather then treating it as a fact by itself. Imagination here is key again. Because you have to look beyond the reality in your face, and look from more perspectives than the one you current have. That insight comes from imagination.

If we had more time for imagination, we would not have to hire the expensive strategy consultant to tell us the obvious. With imagination we could see more threats and opportunities on the horizon. We could use imagination to design better business processes, perhaps even better businesses.

College is the best time of our life because it is then that we can afford to use our imagination. How strange it is then that if we are to be life long learners, that there is so little time to imagine.

Imagine the possibilities.

#52 "Google is Your Friend"

The information age has put us adrift on an infinite ocean of information. Yet, without an able navigator, we either fail to leave the shore or we become consumed by its infinite nature. Fortunately, a number of navigation (search) tools have been developed to help us filter and find our way: Google Search and Yahoo Search to name the most prominent ones.

Search is all about finding knowledge, ranking disseminating and distributing that knowledge to the inquiring parties. Whereas in ancient times such tools and skills came at a hefty price, we are led to believe that these services are provided to us by search clients for free. But this is not the case. There is a price being paid and there is an implicit, almost invisible contract in place that relatively few people seem to acknowledge or realize.

What we are perhaps forgetting is that by making what we search known to enterprising parties, albeit in aggregate, it says an awful lot about who we are and what our interests are. The key is that the sum of that information is in fact more valuable than what we are searching for. There is no philanthropy in search. In fact it is big business. The value of Google alone as of the 31st of March 2007 was 127 billion US dollars and counting. Just to put that into perspective; 127 billion is larger than the GDP of countries such as Egypt, New Zealand, Israel or Colombia.

Companies like Google make these billions today because people believe that they are making use of a "free" service. Sure it is free in a financial sense in that one is not paying cash to do a search. But one is paying with privacy and knowledge. The difference between you and Google is that they have turned the collective of knowledge and privacy into a hundred billion dollar asset and you find whatever you were "googling" for. In fact, thinking that using Google search (or any other search provider for that matter) is "free" is just plain misleading yourself. You are inadvertently paying for that search by selling pieces of your life.

The action of search companies equate to that eavesdropping train passenger, gently leaning over, so he/she can hear your conversation, quietly taking notes. Even if the curious passenger doesn't know your name he will know a lot about you after listening in. Even if caught in the act, the eavesdropping passenger can easily claim that since he doesn't know who you are it doesn't matter what you said specifically. In actuality, the eaves dropping passenger is only interested in the words you've used, not your name.

Looking at Google’s privacy and cookie policy, you can ask yourself the question “if Google doesn't need to know who I am, then why does it collect the address of my computer, the system I use and the internet browser I use, on top of what I am searching and clicking.” The eavesdropping passenger by now is starting to look a lot more than the Gestapo than those brightly colored and friendly shaped letters that make up the Google logo.

Search companies like Google are taking advantage of a society that is changing faster than people realize. Knowledge remains an important commodity today. However, what has changed is the scope of what we consider knowledge. The public just hasn't realized this yet and smart companies such as Google are quick to take advantage of something we don't consider a commodity: our privacy.

From the perspective of a Google shareholder, one would like to see Google doing even more to optimize the use of their information. The problem is that what can and could be done with specific information or even the aggregate of such information would be on the boundary of what is morally and legally right. Technology moves a lot faster than our legal system, so it is possible that there are enough loopholes that can be exploited in which "googlified" information could be used against our interests. This would call for interesting legal cases, but, even those would be difficult to beat. Who can beat the legal team of a 120 billion dollar company? Due to the low level of my budget, the only defense council I would be able to afford would probably have to rely on Google search to build my case!

It must be said that the intent of this article was not to bear any hostility towards search enterprises such as Google. It is merely a rhetorical reply to a professor who stated that if all else fails "Google is your friend." At first it did seem that way; the friendly web page, ready with thousands upon thousands of search results just a click away. However, as an economist trained to believe that the only thing free in life is sunlight and the air we breathe (for now at least), I did have my hesitation with the definition of Google as a friend.

At the end of the day you as a user just have to keep in mind the implicit nature of the seemingly invisible contract you are colluding with Google as you make use of their services. Even if most people won't be bothered to think about this, do measure what you are giving and what you are receiving for it in return. Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so is information. And yes, knowledge IS power.