Guest Blog - Andrew Jackson
In February 1996 Garry Kasparov, one of the world’s greatest chess Grand Masters, began an historic chess match in front of a packed audience in Philadelphia. Historic because his opponent was not in the room. His opponent was Deep Blue, the chess supercomputer designed by IBM and connected to Philidelphia from California by a relatively new medium called the “internet”.
Deep Blue was one of the most powerful computational machines ever seen. Deep Blue was capable of processing over 100 complex computations per second, analysing millions of move permutations almost instantly. It is estimated that Kasparov, the best of the best in Human terms, could only process 3 to 4 computations per second. The result could therefore only have one outcome……surely?
In fact not. Kasparov, after losing the first game went on to win the match 4 games to 2 and defeated the awesome analytical processing power of Deep Blue*.
In post match interview Kasparov commented that although Deep Blue was an incredible machine with awesome processing its playing style lacked an “intuition and a feeling for the game”
The same is perhaps true in business. More than ever in these tough economic times business is tough. Resources and investment capital are scarce. The hurdles, internal and external, are becoming increasingly high. Just what is the risk of making a wrong call in this tough climate? Is the risk worth losing face? Losing bonus or indeed losing a job? More and more we rely on analysis, we rely on legal opinion, we try to sanitise and de risk opportunities to the point of missing out entirely and never moving forward.
Very often our own wealth of experience, our intuition, indeed our “gut feel” for good business can be overlooked. It can get lost in the spread sheet formulae and the lawyers red ink.
Listen to that voice inside, listen to your intuition. Don’t ignore the human perspective of people doing business with people. Be prepared to think outside the box , take a risk and move forward based on your feel for this great game called business.
Checkmate.
*Deep Blue and Kasparov played again a year later and this time Deep Blue won. The first time a computer had beaten a Grand Master. However, this was only achieved after Deep Blue had doubled its processing power but more importantly it had been programmed with real “experience” …..every move from 1000 of the greatest matches ever played by the grand masters over the past 100 years. Only with this experience to call upon could Deep Blue prevail.
Deep Blue was one of the most powerful computational machines ever seen. Deep Blue was capable of processing over 100 complex computations per second, analysing millions of move permutations almost instantly. It is estimated that Kasparov, the best of the best in Human terms, could only process 3 to 4 computations per second. The result could therefore only have one outcome……surely?
In fact not. Kasparov, after losing the first game went on to win the match 4 games to 2 and defeated the awesome analytical processing power of Deep Blue*.
In post match interview Kasparov commented that although Deep Blue was an incredible machine with awesome processing its playing style lacked an “intuition and a feeling for the game”
The same is perhaps true in business. More than ever in these tough economic times business is tough. Resources and investment capital are scarce. The hurdles, internal and external, are becoming increasingly high. Just what is the risk of making a wrong call in this tough climate? Is the risk worth losing face? Losing bonus or indeed losing a job? More and more we rely on analysis, we rely on legal opinion, we try to sanitise and de risk opportunities to the point of missing out entirely and never moving forward.
Very often our own wealth of experience, our intuition, indeed our “gut feel” for good business can be overlooked. It can get lost in the spread sheet formulae and the lawyers red ink.
Listen to that voice inside, listen to your intuition. Don’t ignore the human perspective of people doing business with people. Be prepared to think outside the box , take a risk and move forward based on your feel for this great game called business.
Checkmate.
*Deep Blue and Kasparov played again a year later and this time Deep Blue won. The first time a computer had beaten a Grand Master. However, this was only achieved after Deep Blue had doubled its processing power but more importantly it had been programmed with real “experience” …..every move from 1000 of the greatest matches ever played by the grand masters over the past 100 years. Only with this experience to call upon could Deep Blue prevail.
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