As I keep learning and diving into the world of AI, I often find myself asking this question:
What role does intuition play?
When we can get hyper optimized information so fast, and even test our ideas against the whole world wide web of knowledge, do we still matter?
I believe we do, even more because of it.
When knowledge is commoditized and data-driven decisions are the norm, nuance becomes scarce.
What makes us humans and the parts of the brain that we cannot yet understand or emulate with tech, give us an unfair advantage.
To illustrate, here’s a quick story…
Ever heard about the “41 shades of blue” test?
It’s a famous experiment in A/B testing carried out by Google.
Back in the early 2000s, Google’s designer Douglas Bowman suggested a particular shade of blue for the links on Google’s search results page. A product manager disagreed and thought a different shade would be better. Instead of settling the dispute based on personal opinion, Google decided to test all possible shades of blue to see which one users preferred.
Yes, they ran an A/B test on 41 different shades of blue.
The test was carried out on a small percentage of Google’s users. Each version of the blue was shown to a different group of users, and Google tracked which shade got the most clicks.
The results were surprising…
Even the smallest changes in shade had an impact on user behavior, with some shades significantly outperforming others. The most popular shade of blue led to more clicks and more revenue for Google.
The designer though left Google. To him, it was the death of creativity and intuition.
It’s this level of obsession with data that I think, will become or is already becoming “old fashioned”. And what will make or break your success will be the stuff that you can only learn from truly understanding human behavior – as a human yourself.
As legend copywriter Bill Bernbach once said…
“In advertising, we know how to construct the body, but the real trick is in knowing how to run blood through the veins.”
Intuition, judgement, psychology, decision-making processes… focus on these skills and everything else will pan out.
I plan on sharing some of my learnings from reading a ton of books on these subjects on the Youtube channel. Make sure you subscribe if you don’t want to miss any of those.
Quote and reflection of the day:
“…what’s fair is a matter of opinion. There is no downside to being ambitious. The worst they can say is no, which could still lead to a better yes.”
- Matt Watkinson, Mastering Uncertainty
In negotiations as in life, being ambitious and polarizing always pays off. Have a point of view, be bold, and dare to want more. For yourself and for the people around you.
