Big Data is the way ahead they say and there is no doubt that data is very important. However, let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Experience over a number of years often brings about an instinct that cannot be taught or, at present replaced by big data or AI. That’s why instinctive experience is so effective.
To take an example from the airline industry. On January 15th 2009 US Airways Flight 1549 taking off from LaGuardia airport was struck by a flock of geese when it had only climbed to just under 3,000 feet. This caused both engines to shut down. The pilots had only seconds to make a decision. The captain had nearly 20,000 flying hours logged, of which nearly 5,000 were in A320’s he was also a glider pilot which was to prove very significant. Put another way he had bags of instinctive experience.
In a matter of seconds (far faster than it would have taken to process the aircraft data) he realised that he could not make either emergency airport. He did this because his instinctive experience as a glider pilot told him that he could land anywhere that through the cockpit window appeared to be going down and could not make anywhere that appeared to be going up. Simple but effective. The only solution was to abandon the idea of landing at an airport and to put down on the Hudson River. The result was that no lives were lost. A triumph of instinctive experience.
Less dramatically we have the people who can walk a shop floor, listen to a machine and instinctively know something is wrong, spot someone who is struggling because they have been there themselves and help. They instinctively know what the customer wants or needs, sometimes even before the customer realises. They fully utilise their instinctive experience.
In a world where youth and technology are valued, we should not lose sight of the value of experience. The combination of experience and data is a really powerful one.
Value what is important and most of all effective and not just that which is new and shiny.
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