De Rerum Mutandorum
Institutions change faster and more completely than we think. An example from some recent reading: Harvard University.
Book reviews
Nate Silver and Data-Recency Bias
One more thought provoked by Nate Silver’s thought-provoking The Signal and the Noise.
Why Scenario-Based Planning Beats Prediction
Scenario consultants have an advantage over single-point forecasters like Nate Silver: we’re not restricted to single point forecasts.
Foxy Hedgehogs: “The Signal and the Noise”
Nate Silver’s book The Signal and the Noise makes a darned good case for scenario-based strategic planning…
My Team’s Okay, Your Team’s Evil
Jonathan Haidt thinks we’re weird. And as scenario consultants, we have to agree.
U.S. Election Scenario Data Points: June 1, 2012
May job numbers come in weak for yet another month, after some hopeful signs in the first quarter. Some scenarios for the election campaign are coming into focus.
Scenario Consultant Perspective: Friday’s Naive Two-By-Two Matrix
Paul Krugman’s column today induces us to create scenarios…it’s what we do.
Fault Lines: Two Years Later, Some Scenarios
Scenario fodder for the week: Raghuram Rajan's "Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy" won many awards as best business book of 2010. A couple of years on, it's worth examining Rajan's major theses to see how they have played out.
This Week’s Scenario Blast from the Past: Nation-Building in ’01
Despite our leeriness about extrapolation from the past, we do read a lot of history at FSG in order to write our scenarios. As Mark Twain wrote, “It is not worth while to try to keep history from repeating itself, for man’s character will always make the preventing of the repetitions impossible.” (Mark Twain in Eruption: Hitherto Unpublished Pages About Men and Events (1940, Bernard DeVoto, editor).
What We Are On About Here
Few people think more than two or three times a year. I’ve made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week. – George Bernard Shaw