Beau Lotto - Collected Quotes

"Effects without an understanding of the causes behind them, on the other hand, are just bunches of data points floating in the ether, offering nothing useful by themselves. Big Data is information, equivalent to the patterns of light that fall onto the eye. Big Data is like the history of stimuli that our eyes have responded to. And as we discussed earlier, stimuli are themselves meaningless because they could mean anything. The same is true for Big Data, unless something transformative is brought to all those data sets… understanding." (Beau Lotto, "Deviate: The Science of Seeing Differently", 2017)

"New information is constantly flowing in, and your brain is constantly integrating it into this statistical distribution that creates your next perception (so in this sense 'reality' is just the product of your brain’s ever-evolving database of consequence). As such, your perception is subject to a statistical phenomenon known in probability theory as kurtosis. Kurtosis in essence means that things tend to become increasingly steep in their distribution [...] that is, skewed in one direction. This applies to ways of seeing everything from current events to ourselves as we lean 'skewedly' toward one interpretation, positive or negative. Things that are highly kurtotic, or skewed, are hard to shift away from. This is another way of saying that seeing differently isn’t just conceptually difficult - it’s statistically difficult." (Beau Lotto, "Deviate: The Science of Seeing Differently", 2017)

"Our assumptions are un question ably interconnected. They are nodes with connections (edges) to other nodes. The more foundational the assumption, the more strongly connected it is. What I’m suggesting is that our assumptions and the highly sensitive network of responses, perceptions, behaviors, thoughts, and ideas they create and interact with are a complex system. One of the most basic features of such a network is that when you move or disrupt one thing that is strongly connected, you don’t just affect that one thing, you affect all the other things that are connected to it. Hence small causes can have massive effects (but they don’t have to, and usually don’t actually). In a system of high tension, simple questions targeting basic assumptions have the potential to transform perception in radical  and unpredictable ways." (Beau Lotto, "Deviate: The Science of Seeing Differently", 2017)

"Questioning our assumptions is what provokes revolutions, be they tiny or vast, technological or social." (Beau Lotto, "Deviate: The Science of Seeing Differently", 2017)

"Understanding reduces the complexity of data by collapsing the dimensionality of information to a lower set of known variables. s revolutions, be they tiny or vast, technological or social." (Beau Lotto, "Deviate: The Science of Seeing Differently", 2017)

"The basis of complex systems is actually quite simple (and this is not an attempt to be paradoxical, like an art critic who describes a sculpture as 'big yet small'). What makes a system unpredictable and thus nonlinear (which includes you and your perceptual process, or the process of making collective decisions) is that the components making up the system are interconnected." (Beau Lotto, "Deviate: The Science of Seeing Differently", 2017)

"The greatest leaders possess a combination of divergent traits: they are both experts and naïve, creative and efficient, serious and playful, social and reclusive - or at the very least, they surround themselves with this dynamic." (Beau Lotto, "Deviate: The Science of Seeing Differently", 2017) 

"The term [Big Data] simply refers to sets of data so immense that they require new methods of mathematical analysis, and numerous servers. Big Data - and, more accurately, the capacity to collect it - has changed the way companies conduct business and governments look at problems, since the belief wildly trumpeted in the media is that this vast repository of information will yield deep insights that were previously out of reach." (Beau Lotto, "Deviate: The Science of Seeing Differently", 2017)

"Trust is fundamental to leading others into the dark, since trust enables fear to be 'actionable' as courage rather than actionable as anger. Since the bedrock of trust is faith that all will be OK within uncertainty, leaders’ fundamental role is to ultimately lead themselves. Research has found that successful leaders share three behavioral traits: they lead by example, admit their mistakes, and see positive qualities in others. All three are linked to spaces of play. Leading by example creates a space that is trusted - and without trust, there is no play. Admitting mistakes is to celebrate uncertainty. Seeing qualities in others is to encourage diversity." (Beau Lotto, "Deviate: The Science of Seeing Differently", 2017)

"Understanding transcends context, since the different contexts collapse according to their previously unknown similarity, which the principle contains. That is what understanding does. And you actually feel it in your brain when it happens. Your 'cognitive load' decreases, your level of stress and anxiety decrease, and your emotional state improves." (Beau Lotto, "Deviate: The Science of Seeing Differently", 2017)

"What defines a good leader? Enabling other people to step into the unseen. […] as the world becomes increasingly connected and thus unpredictable, the concept of leadership too must change. Rather than lead from the front toward efficiency, offering the answers, a good leader is defined by how he or she leads others into darkness - into uncertainty." (Beau Lotto, "Deviate: The Science of Seeing Differently", 2017)