Being able to see or figure out what is not viewable or open to understanding is a major concern today. We are faced with new challenges in information gathering, and, lacking the capacity or patience to glean the data ourselves, we look to technology to fill in the holes.
Scientists are telling us they may soon be able to see the shadow of a black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Here on earth, we have already perfected the art of seeing what isn't visible to the human eye, through technologies such as x-rays and ultrasounds.
When we turn our gaze to the business world, we see a similar interest in trying to make out what in fact may be invisible. A manager treats as accurate the information given to him or her from a BI or BAM system. In fact, all of today's computer-driven reports are taken for direct reflections of actual events. And yet the quality of the information is a result of the quality of the system, the events picked, and the tools used, including sensors, bar codes, RFID tags, and reports from salespeople.
As opposed to information gleaned from direct contact -- witnessing a delivery, being part of a sale, or seeing actual bottles coming off a line, for instance -- computerized and electronically transmitted information lacks touch, smell, and other ambient considerations. Reality has varying degrees of noise, crudeness, and elegance that do not translate through bar codes or even the most sophisticated inlay. An RFID tag on a pallet of goods, for instance, might be equipped to tell me that those goods are at the proper location, but may fail to note that the packages on the pallet have been compromised by rainwater that fell through a leaky roof at the distribution center. Sensors might tell us that a package of spinach is at just the right temperature, but fail to report that it has suffered an E. coli invasion.
The point is that reality is complicated. It is always partly invisible to us; otherwise we would be a lot smarter than we are. For instance, when you are out on a boat it can be hard to tell whether the water below you is six fathoms deep or 1,000, and yet it could make a big difference. So even when we're there, we can be fooled.
We can also be susceptible to our own biases. What we call good data is often what we want to believe. What we label bad data can be what we would prefer not to believe.
When companies like Intel, Dell, and Apple temporarily stumble over their own supply chains, what really is happening? Is it bad planning, bad judgment, bad execution, bad timing, bad reporting, a bad supplier? Companies large and small can make big mistakes, and many of these errors are probably the result of invisible information or incorrectly evaluated visible information.
Receiving data from a computer does not automatically validate that information. Computerized data may be no better than the hand-held Weekly Reader. If information is late, skewed, false, tinkered with, or otherwise corrupted, it does not matter whether it came from a site you found on Google, an advanced BI system, or your barber.
It was claimed once that you could drown in an ink well. It is also possible to drown in a sea of information. Be sure you know how to swim.