Anecdote isn’t data, but if you only look at statistics to reach conclusions and decide on policies you’ll miss much of the information you actually need
Around this time of year, many years ago, I moderated a conference. I believe it was to do with marketing. A succession of people stood up and told us about clever things they had done. Some said things that made me turn the corners of my mouth down and nod in appreciation of their creativity. Then again, I was on stage next to them, so I suppose I was being paid to look impressed. An airline chap told us how they had come up with a radical new design for their business-class cabins. Hmm, they had asked themselves, who specialises in the optimum use of small spaces? Aha, exclaimed somebody, how about yacht designers? And bingo, something wonderful was born.
Then he made a related point, which has stuck in my mind. He asked us to put our hands up if we had been in a relationship for more than two years. Most hands went up. He told us to consider our partners and acknowledge that, after two years or more, we were privy to an awful lot of information about them. We knew what they liked and disliked, what got on their nerves and what didn’t, what they enjoyed eating, or not, and all their ambitions, hopes and fears, as well as their shoe size and other vital statistics.
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