The Importance of a Point of View
Most professional careers celebrate objectivity. Doctors, engineers, bankers, and anthropologists all describe a need for a clear, sensible, emotionless approach to their work. Data is king in these fields -- until hard data is provided, professionals are taught to be skeptical, and to reject unsubstantiated changes. Metrics and empirical tests of efficiency, validity, or productivity are celebrated. Even marketers -- whom often produce humorous and emotionally charged artifacts -- tend to substantiate their work with rigorous data collection both before and after the production of these artifacts, in an attempt to add some form of rationalization, and to track and analyze their successes. Google Analytics has made the infamous A/B testing ubiquitous in web properties, where a full suite of metrics can be processed and tracked in order to understand the causal relationship between a decision and the behavior of the community of users. This idea of causality is the holy grail of statistics, as it -- when combined with appropriate sampling and other qualities of statistical significance -- indicates a direct and logical relationship between an action and a response.
To read the full, original article click on this link: When Trying to Invent, Being Objective Can Cripple Your Process | Co.Design
Author: Jon Kolko
